The Young Thousands

Lyrics

Boats ease into the harbor bearing real suspicious cargo
And the sunlight on the water sets a switch off in your brain
The things that you've got coming will consume you
There's someone waiting out there in an alley with a chain

The ghosts that haunt your building are prepared to take on substance
And the dull pain that you live with isn't getting any duller
There's a closet full of almost-pristine videotape
Documenting sordid little scenes in living color

Here they come
The young thousands
Here they come
The young thousands

You drive east from the ocean with both hands tied on the wheel
And you go past Garden Grove as the pleasure index rises
The things that you've got coming will do things that you're afraid to
There is someone waiting out there[1] with a mouthful of surprises

The ghosts that haunt your building have been learning how to breathe
They scan the hallways nightly, vainly searching for a sign
There must be diamonds somewhere in a place that stinks this bad
There are brighter things than diamonds coming down the line

Here they come
The young thousands
Here they come
The young thousands

Banter

So this was on We Shall All Be Healed. [woo!] In those days if I used a pick, if you told me I'd be using one in the future, I Would have called you a bad person and a liar. Because I was too good for a pick in those days. Then I started playing like a hundred shows per year. You need a pick every once in awhile doing a hundred shows a year, this song is one of those hand-bleeders. It's about a bunch of hand bleeders. (2015-04-09 - Webster Hall, New York City)
Last time I was in this building I was in a mosh pit right there. Municipal Waste was playing. [woo!] And it was rad. I think it was probably my final pit, though time will tell. You always think you've seen your last pit, because I have some bad news - obviously I don't age and will be 29 forever, but - but it is the case of, mysteriously, even if you're immune to aging, if you take a knee in the pit, it seems to hurt worse when you've been 29 for 10 years, than when you've only been 29 for two years. Somehow your knee is not down with the program. You can yell at your knee all you want, but then people on the bus get mad at you. This is a song about the kind of people who yell at their knees on the bus. (2015-04-13 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia)
This is on We Shall All Be Healed. It’s a song about wondering whether you’re actually going to get healed. (2015-04-22 - The Wexner Center, Columbus)
This is a song about how for so long you were fleeing from them. You know, and you saw their numbers dwindle, and you say, 'oh, I'm finally wearing 'em out, I've run long enough that there were an original number, there was half that, and a quarter that, and there was only a couple of them left, so I was done. I have evaded the young hundreds.' But no. They were only gathering their reinforcements. It's called The Young Thousands. (2015-04-23 - Mr. Smalls, Millvale )
JD: I'm gonna talk a long time so I can get a rest, this next song needs a lot of energy. And alcohol.
Peter: Let's take a rest.
Audience: Woo! Alcohol!
JD: I mean to have a word with y'all about how you cheer on a guy when he starts drinking. I mean, on the one hand, the person in me who is an addict celebrates your choice there. And then the caregiver in me says no, under no circumstances should you, when a person says 'I'm going to drink more', go YEAH! [laughter, a few YEAHs, a few DRINK MOREs] So, I can't see where my other beer is, what if it was Matt? What if I started berating my bandmates like, you took my beer! Matt. What's that all about, yeah, you're holding out.
Peter, drily: It's because we care about you, John.
JD: It's just you and me, buddy. [searches for alcohol] It's glad to see me. This is a song about some people who share the sorts of convictions we were just talking about. Unafraid to express these convictions both in the way they speak and the way they live. Out there in Garden Grove, California. (2015-06-01 - The Fillmore, San Francisco)
If you -- and I hope you don't, but -- if you find yourself in Costa Mesa and you need to buy heroin and you find yourself parked between two duplexes, waiting for the dude, hoping that a policeman doesn't pull up behind you because you'd have to back out to leave the alley between the duplexes. If you find yourself in this situation, then I'm thinking of you. I'd like to dedicate this song to that alley in Costa Mesa. (2016-04-19)
This is a song about young people on speed. [audience cheers] You say 'woo' now. You may have cause to reflect upon that 'woo' in your future. Not about the song, I think the song is good. The speed itself, I'm not so sure about. I mean, it was good in terms of the quality. Morally, I'm less certain. (2017-06-02)
"This is a song about some friends of mine who did not get the applause that they wanted, but they probably got the applause they deserved."(2017-11-12 Brooklyn Steel)

Live Performances

Footnotes

1. "someone waiting somewhere" (2015-04-09)