"Sweetness"

You've been thinking about "Sweetness" a lot lately, because you just can't figure out why this song makes you so fucking happy. Maybe it's because it's a great song. You can tell the guys in Jimmy Eat World sat there and said, "we need a song to sing that would be awesome if we were huge rock stars singing to thousands of people. It should be anthem-y, and have big walls of guitar chords, and the voice of an average, everyday man calling out to other average, everyday men about spinning free and dancing dizzily. And it should have words that everyone knows, and can sing back..." But even that's not it-- this song makes you happy because of that night at the Wiltern when a bunch of you got tickets for $20, and you all shuffled your wristbands around until everyone who only had tickets for the balcony got a spot on the floor. And there was a light show, and Jimmy Eat World was there, actually singing to you. And that voice started this song out of nowhere

If you're listening...

and when that first wave of guitar hit everyone that you could see jumped, all together. And your feet all hit the floor at once. And everyone-- everyone- screamed back, "Whoa-oh-oh-ohoh!"

Sing it back, whoa...
String from your tether unwinds
up and outward to bind

I was spinning free, whhhoaaa...
with a little sweet and simple numbing me...

But, at the same time, you also realize that this song makes you so fucking sad. Because you somehow assume that this song is about love-- that "sweetness" is just a beautiful stand-in for the word "love." Because you assume that most songs are really about love (mostly your love.) And you see that there appears to be so much freedom, with all of that spinning and being dizzy, and being caught up with love, and the sweet and simple. But then, the song ends...

This sweetness will not be concerned with me.
No the sweetness will not be concerned with me.

But...why won't it?

When I tried--



-- when I tried so hard-- just to make it stay?