AFYCSO: random stuff about each song
ha idk what to call this post. I’m just dumping misc info that’s specific to each song… and I don’t remember the last time I typed these full song titles so this is all sorts of wild.
The band used “passing fantasy,” “passing fancy,” and “passing folly” in different Fever-era shows so that got switched up.
Ok so I want to be super clear first that this is just my own personal guess… Paulina was one of Ryan’s closest friends who was a huge supporter of the very early band (like before they were even P!ATD). I’m not going to share her last name but it was super Polish. I heard she was also in Poland during P!ATD’s 2006 summer tour. I assumed the Polish in AFYCSO’s intro was a nod to Paulina but I have no idea if that’s true so please don’t take it as a fact or anything.
The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage
Ryan said the title is from a line in Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk.
the guys talked a lot about how their goal was to shake things up. I put more in other posts about how they were trying to do something different and open kids’ eyes.
they usually abbreviated this on set lists as “Applause” (that was also the working title in summer 2005).
the info I put below for “I Constantly Thank God For Esteban” fits this song and others too (especially with lines here like "it seems the artists these days are not who you think").
Ryan told MTV: “We just knew when the record came out we were going to have a lot of people, you know – looking at our band because of the way we got signed and a lot of people not really supporting that way of doing things and so we decided to address that before they had a chance to take a shot at us.”
London Beckoned Songs About Money Written By Machines
Ryan said “there’s one line, I believe, or a reference sort of” to Chuck Palahniuk’s work in this song. He means the style of how he wrote the whole “just for the record, the weather today…” part.
the title was taken from Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland: “…glad I was too plugged into my Walkman to hear the connecting-fight announcement (extremely torrid tunage from London beckoned songs about money written by machines).”
the working title was “NYC” and that’s what they often put on their set lists too.
Ryan told MTV: “There’s a lot on the record about proving our detractors wrong because we had two songs online and people were already making assumptions about what kind of band we were and what our album was going to sound like. And that’s what a lot of the album is about. It’s directed at all those kids that talk on message boards.”
Ryan also said: “We knew that there would be people reviewing the record when it came out and we had to give the first punch. We really didn’t care. We weren’t writing the record for critics, we weren’t writing the record for kids at that point. It was completely for us. We just wanted to address that in a sarcastic way…”
from a March 2006 Daytrotter article with Brendon: “It’s pretty much just been luck. (Wentz) came and watched us practice and signed us. It happened really fast, but we’re not just some shitty band. We have something to offer, but everybody was saying, ‘This band’s not going to be any good.’ We knew what was going to happen. We knew what was to come. (“London Beckoned”) was one of the first songs we wrote for the record.”
Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks
the demo was “Nails for breakfast and tacks for snacks.”
Brendon said in an April 2006 UK tour video that this song title was one of the things Ryan’s dad used to say to him like “if you’re not tough enough maybe you should have nails for breakfast and tacks for snacks.”
the band usually abbreviated this to just “Nails” on their set lists.
this song & Camisado were directly about Ryan’s dad.
the demo was “Relax, Relapse.”
"In military tactics, a camisado or camisade is a surprise attack occurring at night or at daybreak, when the enemy are supposed to be asleep.” Yup, I just googled that definition instead of butchering it myself ha.
Ryan was constantly trying to challenge people & push the envelope. He wanted Camisado introduced as a dance song (and mentioned similar things quite a few times). Ryan also told Big Cheese in early 2006 that “you notice a lot of dance bands, the lyrics are pretty straightforward with nothing to think about – just songs to dance to. While we have songs to dance to, the lyrics are definitely not lighthearted. You can read into it more.”
People were so convinced in late 2005 that this song had taken inspiration from Fight Club lol… some fans were seriously trying to connect everything to Chuck Palahniuk for a few months right after the album came out. Ryan had to explain several times that Camisado had absolutely nothing to do with any Chuck Palahniuk novel and even said: “People are like, ‘Yeah! This part’s about this part, in Fight Club!’ and I’m like, ‘No…that’s like my real life.’ But, yeah. So hopefully that clears that up. It’s kind of amusing though.”
Ryan’s August 2004 livejournal post with the first version of the lyrics said it was based off a story… and that book turned out to be Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.
I always assumed the title was using Ecclesiastes 3 but that’s just my take on it.
the band considered this to be the first song they all wrote together.
the official demo was “It’s Time To dance (cause boys will be boys)” but “Time To Dance” was the working title by summer 2005. That’s what they usually used on set lists too.
here’s what Chuck Palahniuk had to say about the P!ATD songs.
Lying Is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off
Ryan’s girlfriend cheated on him in spring 2005 and inspired a lot of lyrics. He told The Guardian in summer 2008: “At the time it felt like the world had ended. I hated everything. It affected that whole album. I guess it’s good that I wrote it down. I might have stabbed somebody.”
update: Jac Vanek is definitely not the girl who inspired the lyrics for Lying Is The Most Fun. I can see how that might seem possible if you’re looking back on the Fever era from the perspective of this decade, but in 2005 it felt like Jac was part of a completely different era of Ryan’s life. They’d been flirting on lj since 2004, but they didn’t start dating until around Halloween 2005 (after AFYCSO was released and Panic was halfway done with a second tour). I’m not going to post anything about the girl who did inspire the lyrics since she didn’t choose to make herself directly involved with the band (but I will say that Pathetic at the Disco’s post on Ryan’s early love life has more errors than facts in it).
Apparently Ryan wrote a draft of Lying Is The Most Fun when he was upset and emailed it to Brendon in the middle of the night. Both guys explained in 2006-2007 how Brendon helped coach Ryan into the right mindset and talked him through some of the writing. So the song is definitely Ryan’s writing, but I think it’s understandable if Brendon feels some connection to the process of creating the lyrics too.
Here’s Brendon talking a bit about the song.
The working title for this was “Sweat.” The most common names on set lists were “Lying” or “Sweat,” but phrases like “Lying is the most….” were used too.
Ryan told Kerrang: “I wasn’t even sure about putting it on the record because it was so personal. It made me change how I write lyrics because I didn’t want all my dirty laundry to be out in front of everyone. It’s pretty obvious it’s about a breakup and feeling angry. I was really into dynamics – the verses are very quiet and I wanted it to have a huge chorus.”
here’s Ryan saying a bit more about the dynamics.
Spencer said in late 2006: “There are two song titles [from Closer] and that’s only because the quote is so long we had to break it into two… It was pretty much a case of timing. We were trying to think of titles for the album and we saw Closer and liked that line. No deeper meaning than that.”
This song’s title was the first part of a line Natalie Portman says in the movie Closer.
this was the way to connect the drastically different styles of the album’s two halves.
the dialogue is from this part of the 1938 broadcast Orson Welles did of War of the Worlds.
But It’s Better If You Do
This title was the last part of Natalie Portman’s line from Closer.
Ryan told Kerrang: “That was the first song I wrote after ‘Lying…,’ and I switched how I wrote lyrics. It was still about that breakup, but it’s just a story about how a guy would deal with getting over somebody that he loved. It’s a fictional story. I wanted to be able to paint a picture in somebody’s mind, if they closed their eyes and listened I would hope that they would picture how our video is for that song.”
Ryan told MTV: "It’s a song about being in a strip club but not actually liking being in there. So I wanted it to be about the sort of complex inner-monologue. It’s not completely fiction, though. It’s based on a scenario when I was going through a breakup with a girl, and I was in one of these clubs but wishing I didn’t have to be. Because in reality, I don’t like strip clubs. I think they’re kind of ecch.”
the band usually called this song “Cabaret” on their set lists (and sometimes to each other during interviews). Whoever typed their set lists was my favorite – idk if they weren’t sure how to spell the word or if they were just trying to come up with as many creative versions as possible over the years, but “Caberae” was the best.
I Write Sins Not Tragedies
Ryan said in late 2006: “It was one of the first songs that I wrote that was more of a fictional story than a literal song and it was really challenging. It was also one of the first times I wrote the lyrics before the music, so that really shaped the instrumentation – we wanted to do something a little less rock ’n’ roll on it and it was really fun to do cello and bells on the first verse… the lyrics were purely from my imagination. I was going through a break-up, but it was just a scenario that popped into my mind. There is an old-fashioned feel to it… it was just a story that I wrote for myself. If people can relate to it, that’s wonderful, but that was never the intention.”
I remember hearing this several times but I forget the source so def take it with a grain of salt: Ryan’s dad walked in on him & his girlfriend in bed and yelled “haven’t you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?!”
a September 2006 Blender article claimed that “poise and rationality” is a Dickensian phrase.
Ryan told Kerrang: “I was tired of writing songs out of my journals, I wanted to make it more interesting. So I started writing scenarios, things would start popping up in my head. It’s this fictional story I came up with. I was listening to a lot of movie scores, and I wanted to start making the music fit the lyrics more.”
The working title was Flam Chorus. The guys continued to call it that to each other for a few months after they started touring, but their set lists said “Sins” by 2006.
a quote from Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland: “I am writing a list of tragic character flaws on my dollar bills with a felt pen. I am thinking of the people in my universe and distilling for each of these people the one flaw in their character that will lead to their downfall – the flaw that will be their undoing… What I write are not sins, I write tragedies. And I am writing these tragedies in a manner that the recipients can easily absorb. And I won’t say whose flaw is whose. I continue.”
ok let me point out: Ryan wasn’t copying from that quote because he couldn’t come up with something original on his own. He was using it to strengthen his commentary. He flipped “What I write are not sins, I write tragedies” into “I write sins not tragedies.”
I Constantly Thank God for Esteban
Brendon, Spencer, and Ryan all mentioned at various points how some lady in one of Esteban’s infomercials said “I constantly thank god for Esteban!” The joke was even better since the song had a Latin spin… they really had fun laughing at Esteban in general.
the working title and abbreviated title on set lists got right to the point: “Esteban.”
Ryan said “There is such a lack of inspired writers in this scene, and it’s a shame some bands are selling tons of records while they are completely faking it. The song ‘I Constantly Thank God for Esteban’ deals with that issue.” … [with] the line ‘if this scene were a parish, you’d all be condemned.’”
Ryan mentioned several times in 2005-2006 that he was tired of how fake other bands were. He told Rock Sound that “the goal of the band was always to write songs that have a more sarcastic sound and not to be so overtly serious, as so many other bands are. I think kids associate with that; I wanted to open people’s eyes to the bands that are just faking it and maybe the kids to pick up on that and enjoy that. I mean, come on! Those other bands out there don’t really want to slit their wrists and kill their girlfriends, do they?”
So then there were lines in the song like “And I, for one, can see no blood from the hearts and the wrists you allegedly slit.” I honestly almost pasted the whole song here for an example ha… it’s so clever and the title they chose is hilariously perfect.
There’s a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet
Ryan said the title was a line from the song that didn’t make it into the finished version.
This song is a good examples of how Ryan drew inspiration from the Counting Crows’ narrative lyrics… I also think it’s one of the better examples of Third Eye Blind’s influence.
(and this has nothing to do with the song’s inspiration but I just need to point out how Ryan often wore pinstriped pants onstage in the Fever era ha).
The working title for this song was “Top Hats.” They usually used that name on set lists too, but sometimes it was “Tables” or another version.
Build God, Then We’ll Talk
This was one of the songs that Ryan started writing lyrics for in early 2005 before the band went to Maryland, but it sounded like it was the last song they wrote in the studio.
Ryan played with the “My Favorite Things” song from The Sound of Music brilliantly: “there are no raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses, it’s sleeping with roaches and taking best guesses, at the shade of the sheets and before all the stains, and a few more of your least favorite things.” Even the melody feels like a sleazy mockery of The Sound of Music… it’s so well done.
Some people used to say the song’s title came from a quote in Choke… idk if that’s actually true or if it’s an assumption (like the supposed Camisado connection).
Ryan was asked about the virgin & lawyer aspect of the song in a spring 2006 interview and he said “it’s a pretty big scene in Vegas, and I see that stuff all the time. It was something I wanted to write about for a long time. The lyrics were purely fictional and was done out of my imagination.”
The working title for this song was “Favorite Things.” The set lists sometimes said that, but other times they just said “Build God.”
the guys all consistently said this was their favorite song to play live.
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
