Interpretations:Renew My Subscription
- Song
- Lyrics
- Interpretations
- Credits
- Guitar Tab
- Bass Tab
- Chronology
Lifelong Daydream? Did he die? (Well, if he keeps on taking all those "Magic Pills" he most certainly will...) Did the first section take place after the second?
Magic Pills...
-TitaniumHamster
_______
On the first pass, I think this is about anxiety, misery and alienation and how people deal with it. The narrator thinks he's a miserable freak show, and that he bellows in desperation, but without connection to anyone. After all, he is pouring out personal information in a letter to a magazine.
He's dealing with his mental discomfort with pharmaceuticals and by reading magazines looking for comfort, and feels a connection that isn't really there to someone in an article.
~Christina Miller, November 2005
I don't think the song is about anything other than the fun parallel that can be drawn between the phrases "one renews a subscription" and "one refills a prescription". This song has a sweet island beat and some gentle, pleasing variations in the melody. --Nehushtan 11:53, 10 Apr 2006 (CDT)
Haha, I really like this one. "refill my prescription to whatever that thing is that makes the carpet stop turning into snakes" I love it. I think it's about people that are dependant on something, whether it be pills or writing pathetic letters to a magazine or reading those letters.
And toying with the fact that "prescription" and "subscription" are terrific rhymes for each other. ~She Might Be Ruth
The narrator's obviously got some sort of problem. Like a lot of TMBG songs, however, we can't really narrow it down to one thing. And he's not motivated enough to do anything but just sit at home reading health magazines and taking his Prozac.
- J2
This song made me think about pornography and drugs. -Alice
I am reminded of Jonathan Coulton's wonderful song, I Feel Fantastic (see what I did there?). It's about a guy who needs something to get him through daily life, because otherwise he just can't handle it. Those "magic pills" just make him think his life is better. -WhatIsThatThing previously known as SonicFan
My interpretation brought to life through a couple hours of work. Renew Jack's Subscription:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMkIj09er4Y
XSK
The lyrics read like a relatively straightforward narrative. This person has retreated from society for whatever reason (I'm reminded of hikikomori, although it's probably not a direct reference), choosing instead to remain shut indoors all day and read magazines. He recognises that he's a "miserable freakshow" with problems, but still sticks to this lifestyle and only ventures outside for medication to help with his deteriorating mental stability. Though people have told him that he shouldn't be so dependent, he's refused to try fixing his own life so far, and now he relies on that medication to the point of having a raging breakdown at the thought of not taking any more pills. The dense, effortless-sounding rhymes give the whole song a sense of flowing, suggesting that these two themes are very much connected and that this kind of thing keeps happening. It's a pretty sad story when you imagine that guy wasting away, squandering his life on one addiction after another.
What I think is interesting is how the ending is so... "sudden" isn't the right word because it implies "jarring", which this song is decidedly not, but it's a little unusual anyway. The music stops on the same imperfect cadence that was at the end of the first chorus, when you'd probably expect it to carry on into a third verse or an outro. If you feel like linking the music to the narrative in the song, you could infer a lot from that. Maybe the narrator ends up dying without ever breaking free of his dependence, or - seeing how handily another verse would tag onto that ending - he just keeps moving from addiction to addiction, never realising his real problem. Or maybe, because there isn't another verse, he does eventually manage to shake everything off and stop the cycle. It's fun to consider, at least. ~ blitzente (talk) 18:59, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
Weed.[edit]
Renew his subscription, guys. This song was written directly after Flansy wrote Memo To Human Resources about Linnell. Linnell is talking about weed. He stopped smoking weed for a brief time, then he wrote Thunderbird which is a song about smoking weed. Prevenge was written in response to this song.
Possible Literary Connection?[edit]
The narrator of this song reminds me of the narrator/main character in Steve Martin's novel "The Pleasure of My Company". He is almost a shut-in, who habitually engages in behavior that he knows and aknowledges is not normal, but chooses to engage in that behavior anyway. He too, as I recall, is dependent on magazines and prescription pills.
So I wonder if that book may have inspired this song. It's a quirky, funny, sad, and poignant book, and it's not too hard to imagine that it might have found its way onto one of the Johns' bookshelf.
- Well according to Amazon's publication date, the book came a year later. But in fact, the song (in demo form) appeared on tmbg.com about 2 weeks after the book came out. Spooooky. ~ magbatz 10:07, 14 May 2012 (EDT)
My interpretation is that the narrator is an aging hypochondriac. After reading a bunch of medical horror stories in magazines, he starts taking pills he doesn't really need. His doctor suggests better options like dieting and exercise, but he's already hooked on his medicine. It reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where a hypochondriac gets mad when his doctor confirms that's he's perfectly healthy and refuses to give him vitamins.
Depressed? It's your own fault :)[edit]
I've been criticized by a TMBG fan before for taking their songs too seriously. It seems like you have to know exactly when to take their songs seriously or not, or else you just "don't get them." I was told last time I thought too much about one song and if I didn't like it I should just focus on any of their other songs instead. OK. Well, this song really bothers me.
The singer is directly stating that he has been advised he would overcome his serious mental illness (which includes visual hallucinations) with "exercise and diet," but he prefers taking medication given to him by a pharmacy (during opening hours so he presumably isn't stealing it) which temporarily halts the visual hallucinations but, it seems, will not fix him long-term and does nothing to resolve his other problems of being a "heartsick shut-in".
So, addicted(?) to increasing doses of medication, he rots at home and does not speak to people. However, he relates to what he's read published by others in "Desperate Bellowing Magazine" and "Miserable Freak-Show Quarterly". What are these magazines? Are they written by other people with the same problem he has, who also refuse to get help (by dieting and exercising) and want to complain instead? Are we supposed to be amused by how pathetic these people are? I don't see this song as being sympathetic toward the narrator, the tone I get from it is just "ha ha I'm a loser."
I understand being frustrated with people who will not help themselves and prefer to keep complaining about whatever's wrong in their life. I strongly object to the implication that people who have severe mental illness are responsible for their own condition and would have all their issues fixed if they simply tried diet and exercise and STOPPED taking their medication. This is a harmful stereotype about mental illness - that depressed people are just lazy, that depression isn't even real, and that medication won't help you. However throw-away this song is supposed to be, I'm disappointed to hear lyrics like this.
Classic Giants[edit]
Both analyzing the song, in general, and as a response to the previous post above, I think this song is a perfect example of the classic TMBG formula of a calm or jovial-sounding song musically combined with extremely sad or depressing lyrics or subject matter. I definitely don't think anything about the song is casting blame on depressed people or individuals struggling with addiction. I think it's more of an observational commentary that there are probably a number of people like this in the country or the world and that fact alone is a sad thing to acknowledge. I don't think it's preaching about what anyone with an addition should or shouldn't do so much as it is examining the thoughts and lifestyle of a type of person who is caught up in their complex mental, emotional, and/or social problems. It's beautifully sad.
