I just wanted to make a quick comment on this album's lyricism. Aside from a few weak moments ("it's not a fever / it's a freezer" being the major offender) I think it's a tremendous effort, particularly in the way it deals with anxiety. Matt's lyrics have always had an underpinning of encroaching anxiety from my point of view, and I think Trouble Will Find Me finds him at his best.
A few choice pars:
I can't fight it anymore, I'm going through an awkward phase
I am secretly in love with everyone that I grew up with
I do my crying underwater, I can't get down any farther
All my drowning friends can see, now there is no running from it
It's become the crux of me, I wish that I could rise above it
But I stay down with my demons
Every day I start so great and then the sunlight dims
The less I look the more I see the python in the limbs
I do not know what's wrong with me, the sour is in the cut
When I walk into a room I do not light it up, fuck
I can hardly stand up right, I hit my head upon the light
I have faith but don't believe it, it's not there enough to leave it
Everything I love is on the table
Everything I love is out to sea
I have only two emotions, careful fear and dead devotion
I can't get the balance right, with all my marbles in the fight
I'm tired, I'm freezing, I'm dumb
When it gets so late I forget everyone
I need somewhere to stay
I don't think anybody I know is awake
Calm down, it's all right
Keep my arms the rest of the night
Jenny I am in trouble
Can't get these thoughts out of me
Jenny I'm seeing double
I know this changes everything
It takes a lot of pain to pick me up
It takes a lot of rain in the cup
Graceless
Is there a powder to erase this?
Is it dissolvable and tasteless?
You can't imagine how I hate this
I don't have the sunny side to face this
I am invisible and weightless
You can't imagine how I hate this
Graceless
I'm trying, but I'm gone, through the glass again, just come and find me
God loves everybody, don't remind me
I took the medicine and I went missing
Just let me hear your voice, just let me listen
Come apart at my seams, now I know what dying means
I am not my rosy self, left my roses on my shelf
Take the white ones, they're my favourites
It's the side effects that save us
I'm in the crush and I hate it, my eyes are falling
I'm having trouble inside my skin, I'll try to keep my skeletons in
I keep coming back to where everything slipped
But I will not spill my guts out
I don't need help to breakable, believe me
Davy says that I look taller
But I can't get my head around it, I keep falling smaller and smaller
I couldn't find quiet, I went out in the rain
I was just soaking my head to unrattle my brain
I didn't ask for this pain, it just came over me
I love a storm but I don't love lightning
All the water's coming up so fast it's frightening
You said it would be painless, a needle in a doll
You said it would be painless, it wasn't that at all
Okay, that's a shitload, but I just think they're really good and I can relate to them. I Need My Girl is one of my favourite songs on the record because the music sounds anxious as well.
My favourite Matt lyrics though remain the ones where I feel like he's trying to bat away those Demons. All the Wine and This is the Last Time (before the "Jenny I am in trouble..." part) are two examples of that.