Song Meaning
The lyrics immediately drop us into a "strange period" where life presents a stark binary: "everything or live in stress." The "average citizen" isn't just a person; they exist primarily "on TV." This sets up a world where reality feels mediated and extreme.
The central tension here is the crushing pressure of modern existence. There's no middle ground implied between absolute abundance and constant anxiety. This dichotomy highlights a societal landscape where economic and psychological well-being are presented as all-or-nothing propositions.
The most striking craft element is the speaker's shift in perspective. After observing that the average citizen is a media fixture, the speaker asserts, "In every commercial, I will create him." This isn't just observation; it's a declaration of agency, suggesting the speaker is either a cynical architect of these media illusions or someone acutely aware of how manufactured the public image of "average" truly is.
These lines hit hard because they articulate a pervasive modern anxiety: the feeling that our lives are either aspirational fantasies or stress-filled struggles, with little room for genuine, unmediated experience. The lyrics brilliantly expose the artifice behind the idealized images we consume daily, making us question who truly defines what "average" even means.