What was pumped up kicks written about

It stormed to the number one spot on charts worldwide and was played non-stop on mainstream radio. However, the upbeat and lively vocals and rhythm hide a sinister message. The song takes multiple perspectives, opening in the third person, then switching to the third-person perspective.

This line, coincidentally, also makes up the title of the song. On April 20th, , two students stormed their school and killed thirteen people. This included a teacher. They then proceeded to engage in a firefight with police, before turning their weapons on themselves. This became known as the Columbine Massacre and would go down in history. That would be a more reasonable interpretation, though, if Foster were more in control of his lyrics: if he were not, for instance, switching from third to first person in the few lines he's written or offering as the only possible bits of explanation for the shootings sneaker envy and the tidbit that "Daddy works a long day.

Popular music, to be sure, is full of murder songs, many of them classics: Johnny Cash "shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" opens with a son confessing murder. But these songs have consequence, both narrative and musical weight. Cash's character is in Folsom Prison at the time he sings, with a hard case of the blues. The Keen character, in the final verse, "is going to the chair. And, if we bother to think beyond the song's 4 minutes and 16 seconds, we know that he will bring a lifetime of agony to people who have done nothing to deserve it.

That just doesn't feel very pop. By Steve Johnson. If you're a fan of cheery indie pop song 'Pumped Up Kicks' by Foster the People , you might be surprised to learn that while it's definitely an infectiously catchy tune, it has a dark meaning underpinning it.

Of course, if you've paid attention to the lyrics before, you've probably noticed that singer Mark Foster - who came up with the song while working as a commercial jingle composer - says things like 'better run, better run, outrun my gun', and 'better run faster than my bullet'.

That's because the song is about gun violence, and told from the perspective of a 'psychotic' teenager. In a statement to CNN Entertainment , Foster explained how he'd penned the lyrics from the perspective of a troubled kid who is experiencing murderous delusions.