Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ

            Seemingly an innocent and catchy sounding song, “Pumped Up Kicks” is one of those songs that if you don’t pay attention to the lyrics, it just sounds like a trendy pop song. Looking deeper into the song, into the lyrics and trying to figure out what the songwriters were thinking as they wrote this song, it is clear to say the song is about a child who plans on massacring other children. However, looking even deeper into the song, we can see clearer that the child is homicidal because of situations, occurrences, and events in his household.

            In verse 1, the child is identified with the name Robert. The next line states “He’ll look around the room, he won’t tell you his plan.” He has a plan pertaining to certain things in the room. By this, we can say that he looks around the room looking at targets for whatever his plan may be. “He found a six shooter gun in his dad’s closet… He’s coming for you, yeah he’s coming for you.” We can see clearly here that Robert’s plan is to shoot people in the room. To be more specific, we find who his target is, as it is written in the Chorus part of the song: “All the other kids with the pumped you better run, better run, outrun my gun. All the other kids with the pumped up kicks you better run, better run faster than my bullet.”

            In verse 2, we see influences, events, and occurrences in Robert’s life that may be the cause to his homicidal thoughts. “Dad – he works a long day. He’ll be coming home late, he’s coming home late.” We see that his father is a hard-working parent who neglects Robert and doesn’t show him much love as he should as a father. The sheer fact that the child is being neglected and left alone in a vital period of growth and development, it can be said that it’s very common for children to run across thoughts pertaining to death. On a personal level, I can testify to say that it was when I was neglected in the times of many needs, that I came across many thoughts of suicide, homicide, and just death in general.

            In contrast to what societal, civilized, American parents may say about this song, I believe songwriter Mark Foster points out a beautiful aspect in life that many of us miss out on. Like the song itself, life cannot be seen just by the flow and direction of how melodious it is. Rather looking in depth to the song, to Robert’s story, we see that everyone has a probable cause as to why they are a certain way. “Pumped Up Kicks” brings out the realism of many fatherless and motherless (both realistically and figuratively speaking) children.