“The song began as a way to describe this pathetic kid I was imagining. I was picturing a quiet, rotund, sort of cross-eyed, ginger-headed doofus who nobody liked and who sucked at baseball. Just a completely unloved little idiot trying to gain affection. That brought about the chorus: ‘Is he ever ever ever gonna get your love?’
“But then as I got into it, I realized that I was just describing the way that I see myself when I experience self-doubt as a songwriter. Sometimes, after I’ve written a song, it feels like I’m holding up some childish-ass drawing, like, ‘Look what I did.’ And I imagine everybody kind of rolling their eyes, annoyed, unimpressed, like ‘What is it, a lighthouse?’
“So, that chorus ended up saying something much more personal than I had intended; the question of whether or not the kid would ever receive love was really a question of whether or not I would ever earn respect or praise as an artist. My favorite part is that, even after realizing what the song represented, apparently the best I could come up with was a one-line chorus, a one-line bridge, and three super low-brow couplets, none of which actually rhyme.”
