“ So this is a song about a couple of people in a car, and it’s kind of hot in the car, though it’s cold outside. And the reason it’s hot in the car is the seething temperature of their hatred and the sort of, like, you know, it’s one of those situations where you really—let’s say you’re in this car. You have probably at some point, the odds are pretty good you’ve been in this car at some point, right? And at one point or another you look over at the speedometer and it says 75; you’re riding shotgun and you think, you do this sort of quick calculation, and you don’t really know; you’re not a physicist, you know, much less a criminal investigator or anything like that. You’re just a person in a car that you wish you weren’t in, but you think ‘If I pop the door and drop and roll, and I tuck my elbows in, between here and the bushes at the shoulder, what’s the damage I sustain?’ and you picture your lifeless, unconscious body rolling down the beautiful hill, and you see yourself as though in a Japanese film and think ‘But the—you know, I might make it, and maybe I will look up and I will see the last bit of the car speeding away from me and I will count that as a victory.’ This song is about people who have chosen whatever the opposite of victory is.
— John Darnielle introducing Family Happiness @ the Wexner Center 2011-04-11 (via valerie2776)
