On the liner notes for the All Ages album, you can find alternative lyrics that were considered for the song. Instead of the verse “The business man whose master plan controls the world each day…”, they wrote “The worker in the factory, the Hindu in the dust. The mesogleal hooker who can ruin lives with lust” and “The Hindu in the dust, the Russians lack of trust, The NATO powers, lives in fear. The Hindu eating dust. The shepherd lost his flock…” and also “Johnee strung on dope. They gave him too much rope. The Maitredee of Bourgoisee takes valium to cope…”.
The meaning of the song is that their lives are just like yours. It’s about finding unexplored opportunities and hope that can renew your life. Brett explains, “That came from Thomas Wolfe’s ‘Look Homeward Angel.’ It’s like there’s something and I don’t know it yet. It’s under some stone somewhere, if I’m gonna look. There’s some door somewhere, and if I open it and look in that door, then I’ll know! Maybe it never will happen, but that’s the hope, that’s what it’s all about. At one point in my life I had given up on that hope, I had said, ‘No, it’s all bullshit, this is like mental masturbation, there is no hope, it’s a cold universe just like a clock, moving because it is and for nothing else,’ I just don’t think that anymore.”
The song was inspired by Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand.”
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