Racing Like a Pro

I think this one is about a girl who he used to hang with who got an office job, stopped doing what she really wanted to do to go corporate ("shooting up the ladder") and make a lot of money.

"Your mind is racing like a pro, now oh my god it doesn’t mean a lot to you one time you were a glowing young ruffian oh my god it was a million years ago"

She used to be young and happy and reckless.. caring about completely different things. He's acknowledging that she lost who she was by growing up and doing what's expected of her. What she's doing with her life doesn't mean a whole lot to her, but she continues to do it anyway, 'cause that's what success is.

The other posts may be correct, but while listening casually I thought it was about something completely different. I thought it was about a depressed, middle class corporate type that resorts to shooting up drugs. Veins on the arm are the blue laddders and eyes are rolling back in the head.. This person sleeps a lot (depression). Could be waaay off, but that was my original take. These other explanatinos make a lot of sense too.

oh man i think i interpreted this song completely different. i thought it was about someone who has trouble sleeping, and hundreds of thousands or thoughts are rolling through their head that kind of don't relate, and sometimes when they are having trouble sleeping, they bake a cake or something, and sometimes they just start singing incoherently. the part where he is like "you're dumbstruck baby, now you know" i think it could mean a lot of things..... possibly that she (yeah, i also thought it was about a girl) eventually falls asleep and cannot believe it.

but then again, maybe i am just saying that because that is how i feel every night when i go to bed and don't fall asleep for hours.

you know what, I heard 'pronoun' too the first time... I agree with you guys except I kind of thought it might be about a man, not a woman (and that the line about 'womanly' hands was a reference to someone with a cushy office job and yuppy metro lifestyle)

If it weren't for the title, I would FIGHT for "pronoun".

Lovely song, definitely agree on the corporate ladder climber interpretation.

I definitely heard "racing like a pronoun" for about a year after hearing the album.

my favorite song off the new cd, i think the begining is about seeing the change in somebody you care about...

right on, i totally agree with you limbless.

... so i can't lie, the first time i heard this song, i didn't have the song names with me, so i thought he said "your mind is racing like a pronoun" and thought it was some strange metaphor for egotism...oops

Haha. I heard "pronoun" too! Funny. I also agree with bee_6 about the gender of our main character here. The "fifteen blue shirts" is what sells me on that. I don't necessarily see a woman owning the row of identical blue, collared work shirts suggested by those lyrics. The shirt lyric also adds to the idea of a corporate lackey trying to work his way through the system.

:) I was just coming to check whether it was pronoun or not!

That'd be an great lyric.