The new album by The Lumineers, Automatic, is truely a story of a rocky relationship, heartbreak, and eventually acceptance. The band uses their work as a way of musical storytelling and it’s a common occurrence throughout their albums. Automatic is no exception to this as Wesley Schultz, the band’s lead singer, uses the album to tell the tale of a character in a toxic relationship that is seemingly going to end up in a train wreck, and does.
The album starts off with ‘Same Old Song’ with a strong and steady bass drum. This song talks about mental illness, specifically depression, and how life can seem redundant and isolating when struggling with that.
Schultz sings, “And everyones alright, I could not afford to see the light” giving us insight into how he feels alone. Everyone around him seems as though they have everything figured out, whereas he’s left alone in the dark with no way to see the light or the brightness in life. Mental illness can also make life feel as though it is repetitive and meaningless, hence the lyrics, “We sing the same old, same sad song.”
The third track of the album is an instrumental, ‘Strings’, the first of two instrumental songs. It’s a short track, only lasting 34 seconds, but it is a beautiful crescendo of string instruments that separates the beginning of the album from the middle.
The next song ‘Automatic’ is the title track of the album and it takes a turn from the classic Lumineers sound of acoustic guitar and bass drums. This song is instead more of a piano ballad. The lyrics of this song are slightly vague and could be interpreted in many different ways with the chorus being a repetition of “Oh, my lover, is it ever gonna be enough?” Based on how the rest of the story of the album goes, the singer is most likely singing to the love interest who has started to go down the wrong path of drug abuse, wondering when are they ever going to have enough.
The fifth song, ‘You’re All I Got’, is where the story really starts to kick off. In the chorus Schultz sings, “Let the light come down on me” which could also allude to the lyrics from ‘Same Old Song’, “And everyones alright, I could not afford to see the light.” The singer views his partner as the light he never could afford before and that they’re all he’s got.
In the outro of the song Schultz makes a reference to a Greek mythological character, Sisyphus. Sisyphus is the tale of a man who had dared to challenge the gods. He was, of course, punished and his punishment consists of being immortalized to forever push a large boulder up a mountain, but as soon as he reaches the top it is thrown back down and he must do it all over again. His story is often used as a symbol for useless effort. Schultz sings, “And I can’t give it up like Sisyphus, below the rock” explaining that he believes he’ll never be able to give up on his relationship even if others may see it as ‘useless effort.’
The sixth track on the album is ‘Plasticine.’ Plasticine is a malleable, putty like material, think Play-Doh. The song starts with an interesting warbling noise that immediately catches the listeners attention. This song seems to take a turn from the relationship aspect of the album and starts to talk about what it’s like being in fame. It’s a song about bending and conforming to people’s or fan’s views and standards as a celebrity, “Plasticine, I can bend me into anything you need. Self assured with a team of writers feeding you the words.” Celebrities often face pressure from their fans, even if it is meant to be good-natured. This can take a serious toll on an artist’s mental health if they are always feeling pressured to put out new works.
They started out strong, fame taking on quickly and everyone supporting them, but the fame “fog” was hiding all their pain. Schultz sings, “Radio is active, your success is so attractive to us. Everyone said, ‘Carry on, kid’ Hiding all your pain behind the fog inside your brain now.” For everyone else they see this as a thing to support, happy for the band’s quick boost in the media, but it can be disorienting being shoved so suddenly into the spotlight.
‘Ativan’ brings us back on track with the album’s story, focusing back on the relationship here. Ativan is actually an anxiety medicine used to calm the nerves and produce a calming effect, but it can become addicting if misused or taken at the wrong dosage. This song does not seem to be about a steady relationship. We start to see clues that the singer is more at their lover’s beck and call, coming when they need him, “I need an address, I don’t need proof.” Schultz doesn’t need any explanation of why he’s been called, he just needs their location to go to.
In the chorus he says, “If I can’t make you happy, then nobody can. Then nobody can, your sweet Ativan.” The singer is his lover’s rock, their medication that soothes and calms them and he believes that no one else will be able to do that for them. This could almost be interpreted as sweet if we didn’t have the rest of the song to dig into.
Finally, in the outro, he sings, “I’ll be on a bullet train to Neverland. Your enemy, with benefits, we’re free. I’ll provide the poison and the medicine, the only thing you’re ever gonna need.” The singer is on a bullet train (inferring he’s going as fast as possible) to Neverland, a place that does not really exist just because his lover has called. “Your enemy with benefits” is a play on the phrase ‘friends with benefits’ saying that the singer might not really like this person genuinely, or he recognizes that this situation isn’t good for either of them, but they feel that they are the only one that can keep them sane. “I’ll provide the poison and the medicine” this backs up the thought that the singer views himself as his partner’s medicine, the only one that can calm them down, but just like real Ativan, it’s slowly becoming poison. The leash that he has been put on by his lover is becoming the poison that he brings to the table.
In ‘Keys on the Table’ we see this toxic relationship coming to an end. In the verses Schultz sings, “You’re all I got,” which is a very obvious call back to the previous track ‘You’re All I Got.’ While the previous track was about the singer being devoted to the person no matter what, saying that they are all he has, this track seems to take a much sadder turn on that. The singer is almost begging their partner, saying that they’re all he has and they can’t leave him. In the chorus he sings, “And if you’ve lost the faith, boy, leave your keys up on the table” saying that the other person has lost their belief in the relationship and is finally finding the courage to leave. Right at the end of the song in the last chorus the lyrics change to, “Maybe they were right, kid, you were always just a stand-in” inferring that he’s finally starting coming to terms with the fact that the relationship was never meant to last, it was doomed from the start.
‘Better Day’ is a simple track where after the relationship has ended, the singer is dreaming of a better reality. The first half focuses on a relationship aspect, singing, “Fight dirty, lie, steal, and cheat. Say somethin, I’m sorry, please” showing us again the back and forth nature of someone in a toxic relationship. Whereas the second half of the song focuses on the state of the world as a whole, saying, “Senators, insider trades. Blue lights keep red eyes awake. Teenagers lead the parade.” Senators and insider trades represent the untruthfulness of our government and how the youth are going to be the ones protesting against our unjust system.
The tenth track ‘Sunflowers’ is the second instrumental track out of two. It starts with just a piano but ends with a burst of string instruments. The song is light and gives the listener an almost hopeful vibe that things just might turn out alright.
The last track of the album is ‘So Long.’ This wraps up our story of the relationship and explains how the singer has accepted the end and is saying ‘so long’ to the toxic nature of it. The first lines of the song are, “Find yourself the lover, give it to another like I did” giving us the hint that the singer was able to move on and find another lover after his heartbreak.
