Contributors:

Jack Bergeron

Jonathan Chaffer

Jessica Gluckman

This song seems, at the surface, to be straightforward. It may or may not be autobiographical in part. Certainly the song is sung from the perspective of a rock band, but whether that band is TMBG is unclear.

At the beginning, we have a little joke. Sleeping one's way to the top, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with alarm clocks. But we move on to set up the story: the main character sets up a deal with his DJ. The DJ agrees to make the record a number one hit if he is paid for the service. The DJ's pitch is that it's a "long-term investment." Apparently other people had done this (according to the DJ), and all the risks they went through ("The collossal mess they made of their lives") were worth it. The DJ insists that the quality of the record is important, and that success of the record depends on something else.

The chorus presents the dilemma in the song. The DJ has betrayed the singer. We are not told at this point what has happened. John uses a little bit of wordplay here, messing with the idiom "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

The next verse reveals the rest of the story. The DJ has not played the song, and has skipped town. Even the law can't find him. Interesting here is the use of other TMBG songs as lyrical references (Chess Piece Face, Rabid Child, The World's Address).

And here's an unanswered challenge from BlueDawg:

Okay...here's a very vague interp...maybe someone will read it and do the research....

The whole song revolves around Mister Linnell's misunderstanding of the common DeeJay inside joke "I'll scratch your record." Since I know the meaning of this, I feel that it would be sort of unfair to give it away. Mail Jon if you know the rest.