Control (Pedro the Lion album)

Control is the third full-length album by Pedro the Lion. It was released on April 16, 2002 on Jade Tree Records. It is a concept album about a business man who is having an affair on his wife, who kills him. It covers such subject matter as infidelity, parenthood, greed, vengeance, and fear of death.

Track listing

All songs by Bazan except "Penetration" and "Second Best", which were co-written with Casey Foubert.

1. "Options" – 3:56
2. "Rapture" – 3:26
3. "Penetration" – 3:55
4. "Indian Summer" – 3:21
5. "Progress" – 4:09
6. "Magazine" – 4:01
7. "Rehearsal" – 3:48
8. "Second Best" – 6:00
9. "Priests And Paramedics" – 4:35
10. "Rejoice" – 3:11

Personnel

• David Bazan – vocals, drums, guitars, bass guitar, keyboards
• Casey Foubert – bass guitar, keyboards, guitars, percussion
• Design and Illustration by Ryan Clark for Asterik Studio

Storyline

• The album opens with "Options," in which the main character, a married business man, tells his wife that he wouldn't divorce her "without a good reason." This is done while walking down a beach with his wife, "breaking the spell" of the romantic atmosphere.
• "Rapture" then tells of the husband having sex with another woman. The climax is compared to the joy of Christ returning in the rapture, which in the context of the album contrasts with the misery of his sex life with his wife, as told in "Second Best."
• In "Penetration," the main character's callousness is expanded upon, casually firing a subordinate as if picking him last for on the playground. He gives the man this advice, which he relates to him as his secret to success: "If it isn't penetration, then it isn't worth the kiss."
• "Indian Summer," we see into the main character's inflated self-perception, where he is lauded as a miracle worker, politically, economically, and scientifically. He also views himself as a loving father who is loved by their father.
• "Progress" shows the children's relationship with their mother, to whom they are disrespectful and disobedient. It is a direct contrast to the heroic father the main character views himself as, expressing fears of what their children will grow up to be like.
• "Magazine" is the main character's reaction to someone rebuking him and his rebelling against their reproach and further embracing his iniquities.
• In "Rehearsal," his wife discovers his affair and mocks him, calling him "unoriginal," and threatens to murder him, which she sardonically says is also unoriginal.
• "Second Best" is a meditation on the wife's reaction in her less vengeful moments. The song recounts several short scenes from his affair and compares it to their extinguished and laborious romance, and the wife, defeated, decides that she could learn to be at peace with being "second best" in his life.
• "Priests and Paramedics" is the most straightforward story on the album. It follows the paramedics as they tend to "broken bodies all day long." One of the people they come in contact with is the husband, who has been stabbed by his wife during a fight. He asks the paramedics if he's going to die, and the paramedics, "trained to lie," tell him that he is not. The story then cuts to his funeral, where a weary priest tells those in attendance that everyone is going to die someday, and that he doesn't understand why people try to "prolong the pain of being alive."
• "Rejoice" is a meditation on the pain and misery and failure and callousness showcased in the album previously. The song is a wish for everything to be meaningless, and a lament that, instead, everything is so meaningful, and that "most everything turns to shit." A sarcastic or ironic refrain of "rejoice" is then sung.