(The) Harvey Danger Database

The king of the swinging moods is back in town
And everybody’s tiptoeing around him
Surround him as he
pounds a silver hammer,
drops a revolutionary grammar
concerning the burning of city hall
and urban sprawl and decay

bidding:
Farewell to the days of having it both ways
Hell is other people
Some people never learn
When optimism fails
and my cooler head prevails
I will meet you at the point of diminishing returns

Down in the abstract
looking for a concrete artifact
something to hold on to
not one more thing to believe in
Stuck in a fallback
and fighting off a heart attack
and you’re so tangible
like a nitroglycerine tablet
under my tongue

bidding:
Farewell to the days of having it both ways
The boom’s a bust-out
but thanks for your concern
When pessimism fails and
my cooler head prevails
I will meet you at the point of diminishing returns

Progress shall be defined by
your position on the bridge as it burns

When populism, activism, urbanism fail
my cooler head will prevail
When there are no more gods left to anoint
No more noses to bend out of joint
I’m gonna meet you at the point of diminishing returns

Sean: I have an enormous sense of pride in certain things that I've done. Maybe "pride" isn't the right word, but I feel an enormous sense of accomplishment. And that line in particular, "You're so tangible/like a nitroglycerine tablet/under my tongue"—I think it's a good little image.^SS

Sean: When Jeff and I started getting together to write more regularly in 2003, he gave me a really gentle, really simple instrumental (same chords as "Purple Rain," I think) and asked if I thought we could do anything with it; "Diminishing Returns," its melody completely revised, fit perfectly; all that was missing was a bridge, which came along when Aaron joined us, and that fantastic little Granddaddyesque outro; I never meant for the lyrics to mark a theme song for the band, but I have come to think of the song as just that—an admission that the pleasure of making music the way we do far outweighs the external vicissitudes that define it as a way of making money, a way of getting famous, a way of being cool, a way of being lame, or whatever.^10A