Pumped Up Kicks

Producer

Robert, the main character and narrator of the song, dreams of violence towards his rich classmates and peers. The song details his plans and ambitions for a school… Read More

Oct. 14, 20103 viewers2.7M views

Pumped Up Kicks Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Robert's got a quick hand
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan
He's got a rolled cigarette
Hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid
Yeah, he found a six-shooter gun
In his dad's closet with a box of fun things
I don't even know what
But he's coming for you, yeah, he's coming for you, wait

[Chorus]
All the other kids with the pumped-up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped-up kicks
You better run, better run faster than my bullet
All the other kids with the pumped-up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped-up kicks
You better run, better run faster than my bullet

[Verse 2]
Daddy works a long day
He be coming home late, and he's coming home late
And he's bringing me a surprise
'Cause dinner's in the kitchen, and it's packed in ice
I've waited for a long time
Yeah, the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger
I reason with my cigarette
And say, "Your hair's on fire, you must've lost your wits," yeah

Embed

The narrator now brings the aforementioned gun into play, wielding it in a manner that would inspire those in the area to run away with their pumped up kicks.

Mark Foster mentioned in a 2019 interview for Billboard that a school shooting inspired the song:

I remember that week [that I wrote the song], there was some shooting that happened, and it really bothered me, because I recognized that it was going to continue to get worse. And that nothing was going to change. And then that song popped out.

[…] It wasn’t necessarily reacting to the shooting itself, it was reacting to the idea, realizing that this isn’t going to change and that this is going to get so bad. It was like peeling back time and looking into the future and being like, ‘This is going to get so bad before anything changes that a lot of people are going to die and this is going to be a really dark period of American history.’

Still, he acknowledged earlier in the interview that people jumped to conclusions when believing that the song itself was about a school shooting:

I think people filled in the blanks that it was about a school shooting, but I never say anything about a school in the song. It’s really more about this person’s psyche. Obviously the song is speaking about violent things, but it is a misconception that it’s about a school shooting.

About

Robert, the main character and narrator of the song, dreams of violence towards his rich classmates and peers. The song details his plans and ambitions for a school shooting, diving deep into the causes of his emotions.

During a 2011 Rolling Stone interview, Foster said:

I was trying to get inside the head of an isolated, psychotic kid.

Although this song is peppy and upbeat, Foster uses this to mask the true meaning of the song, and makes for a beautiful yet haunting composition, a tension which he referenced in the same interview:

It’s a ‘fuck you’ song to the hipsters in a way – but it’s a song the hipsters are going to want to dance to.

Despite many believing that this song condones and encourages violence, Foster said otherwise in a 2011 USA Today interview:

The song is not about condoning violence at all. It’s the complete opposite. The song is an amazing platform to have a conversation with your kids about something that shouldn’t be ignored, to talk about it in a loving way.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

What did Foster the People say about "Pumped Up Kicks"?

I kind of wrote the song to bring awareness to the issue. That sort of thing keeps happening more and more in our country; it’s kind of turning into an epidemic. To me the epidemic isn’t gun violence; the epidemic is lack of family, lack of love, and isolation – kids who don’t have anywhere to go or anyone to talk to and that’s what makes them snap.

If the band could've changed anything about the song, what would they've changed?

Yeah, I would’ve taken some of the choruses out. There’s too many double choruses. That’s the nature of putting a demo online. Usually, I would sit with a demo and listen to a song a hundred times and then when I go to record it for real, I would have a better idea of which parts feel kind of long and which parts make me lose interest or start to get annoying so I can tighten them up. But because that was the demo, I didn’t have time to do that and once it became reactive, it didn’t make sense to put a different version out. It’s like, “Well, why would I change it? It’s not broken.” But that second chorus was something that always bothered me – it’s already a long chorus so it didn’t need to repeat, and then the end, the outro, it’s the chorus three or four times in a row. It’s just overkill. We’ve been playing it different live for years. I think we changed that the first year when we’re playing it live, we never play double choruses.

– Via MTV (2019)

Is he talking about trying to kill these people?

As stated above, the song is about Robert who dreams of harming his peers, so, yes.

Does this track have any RIAA certifications?

Who produced “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People?

When did Foster the People release “Pumped Up Kicks”?

Who wrote “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People?