So there's a song called "Pumped Up Kicks" by the band Foster The People. I heard it on the radio a couple times, and it sounds very up beat and happy. It reminded me of amusement parks and carnivals for some reason. I never knew what the lyrics were, but I knew the chorus went something like.

all the other kids and they run like this
baby run baby run
faster when it's fun
all the other kids and they run like this
baby run baby run
that's when I get 'cha

I didn't really knew what it was supposed to mean, but hey, nice happy song right? Well.... I overheard it again and I wanted to hear it from start to end.

I googled "run baby run," but to no avail.

I googled "run baby run that's when" and didn't find it.

I googled "all the other kids run baby run," and I found it. I almost wish I didn't. This isn't an old song that I heard many years ago as a kid and didn't know what it was about (like "Wasn't Me" by Shaggy). This is something that I heard as a young adult. I heard at the rec center I was a janitor at 4 years ago during their day camp. I heard people playing it at dances in the ballroom of my college.

So what makes this so "traumatizing?" Here's what the chorus actually is.

All the other kids with the pumped up kicks,
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.

The lyrics are about a kid going on a mass shooting. It's about a kid that's bullied or abused or something, and he decides to massacre the popular kids.The lyrics tell the story about his downward spiral into insanity. Here's a recreation of my reaction to hearing the lyrics for the first time.

According to wikipedia the band wanted to say "the song is a metaphor for the kid; on the surface he seems fine but in reality he's ready to strike." And they wanted to make something catchy to keep the issue of school violence and the issues that drive people to them in people's heads. Here's the problem though, it's TOO catchy and up beat for it's own good. If you don't know the lyrics, you have the delusion that I had initially, and you find yourself humming/singing it happily, and with the recent history of school shootings, it can come off as insensitive to someone who was effected by the school shootings.

Another problem is kids singing along without knowing what it's about. Remember how I said I heard "Wasn't Me" as a kid? Well I sung along to it not knowing it was about a guy that was cheating on his girlfriend. That's bad enough, but a kid's just going to get a slap on the wrist for singing a semi-explicit song about the signs of cheating. With zero tolerance rules in schools, a kid's going to get arrested, detained, and undergo psychiatric analysis for singing a song about going on a shooting spree. Why's little Jimmy singing about going on a shooting spree? Because he heard it on the radio and he thinks the song is fun. What do school officials think when they hear Little Jimmy sing Pumped Up Kicks? "Little Jimmy has mass shooting tendencies and he needs help before he hurts someone." Little Jimmy doesn't know what he's actually saying, he just wants to sing that fun song he heard on the radio. Well now Little Jimmy has a criminal record because the dark lyrics were masked by upbeat music.

I'm not saying it's a bad song, nor am I saying that the message and goal are bad, I'm just saying that there are negative consequences to making an upbeat happy song with a dark meaning. I now never want to listen to it again. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.