Themes
The songs on Cool to Be You address topics including love and relationships, sociopolitical commentary, the death of parents, nerdiness, and flatulence. "'Merican", their first overtly political song, addresses positive and negative aspects of American history, celebrating cultural figures such as Otis Redding, Duke Ellington, and Walt Whitman while condemning slavery, Joseph McCarthy, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Vietnam War. Stevenson wrote "One More Day" about the death of his father, who he had taken in and cared for throughout the last year of his life: "He and I always had a terrible relationship. We spent a good part of my adult life being somewhat estranged from each other. He became ill and I took care of him for a little while. And then he died. That song is just about his and my relationship. Just to get that out of me and not holding it inside anymore, is a huge relief for me Every single time I hear that song, it just freaks me out. I've never, ever written a song that's freaked me out that much."
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Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)