(sometimes! i even edit sprites. do not worry, this shocks me, too // its like jojo you dont HAVE to read parts 1-7 to enjoy PART 8 but, maybe, you would like to???)
Hearing you analyze novocaine would be great honestly it's such a great song and you have excellent opinions
i actually started answering this question but i had an epiphany halfway through and i needed to restart. btw thank u for the complement <3
novocaine is a song about blackness, but specifically about being black and not feeling entitled to that blackness. the first verse declares anger as a black person about the society we live in, recognizing the govmt doesnt have their best interest at heart. (this is a black– black ski mask song/so put all of your anger on/in the truly gruesome do we trust). this theme continues, characterizing the persona as the worst nightmare of the establishment, which could specifically be about the fact that they know they arent getting what theyre owed.
however, the prechorus and chorus are most interesting to me when read as being said by the persona to themself. "if you knew what the bluebird sang at you/you would never sing along/cast them out cuz this is our culture/these new flocks are nothing but vultures" wherein the bluebirds/vultures are the cultural hegemony. 'if you knew how they really thought of you, youd never want to fit in with them. stay way, because they just want to pick you clean.' moving on to the chorus, "they took our love and they filled it up/filled it up with novocaine and now im just numb" they could be the "bluebirds" previously mentioned, and that love in question is a love for themself as a black person.
i think "you" in this song is a version of the persona that tries to hide from their blackness, with the line in verse one "i will always land on you like a sucker punch" referring to the fact that the persona (who is black, or who is their blackness) will always be there to rudely awaken the other half to the fact that they cannot just ignore it. further, the second half of the chorus goes on to say "dont mind me, im just a son of a gun" ie, their blackness is causing the more ashamed half problems, "so dont stop til your heart goes numb/i dont feel a thing for you" pointing to a resentment for the half of the persona that wants to reject their blackness.
moving on to the second verse, its from the perspective of the proudly black version of the persona. "im just a problem that doesnt wanna be solved/so would you please hold your applause" basically saying they arent going to stop being black, so hold your breath. this you could be the ashamed half, or it could be referring to the culture writ large. "take this sideshow and all its freaks/and turn it into a silverscreen dream" this line refers to making themself palatable, likely so they can deliver this message of "im black on purpose". from a more metatextual standpoint, a lot of petes insistence on becoming famous was because he wanted to have a platform to say important things. i think he always thought of influence and social capital as a vehicle for change. he wasnt wrong.
anyway, getting into the lines that Hurt, the bridge. this is from first person perspective, meaning its the part of the persona thats black on purpose, and it goes "some day the valleys gonna swallow me whole" where "the valley" here refers to california and can be read as shorthand for whiteness, fame and the cultural hegemony. "i feel like a photo thats been overexposed" to remind you, when a picture is overexposed, the whole image looks lighter. severe overexposure may make the picture look completely white. the repeated "hijack the hype" is basically a plea from the persona to use the spotlight theyve gained to say something important.
