Originally Posted by
Sesquipedalism
If I recall correctly, the lyrics for the album are the way they are because Thom had brutal writers’ block at that point in his career. He’d write a single phrase, and later pick which ones went where almost, but not quite, at random. IF I recall correctly. I love that lyric because it’s a delightful and playful rephrasing of the idea of “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed” (or at least that’s how I’ve always taken it), but the album—because of that almost Vonnegut-meets-Twitter lyrical methodology—is full of slightly disjointed, kinda brilliant nuggets like that. Keep listening; you’ll find more.
EDIT: I checked my memory. That is what happened with the lyrics. Phrases and ideas were written out, often as single lines. When they were more complicated than that, they were literally cut up with scissors and recombined at random.