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 TITLE: How Long a Man Can Sit in a Bathtub with All the Lights Turned Off ARTIST: Sam Thatcher WRITERS: Sam Thatcher, Christopher Schaffer, Robert Coughlan LENGTH: 3:16 GENRE: Folk, folktronica PRODUCER: Sam Thatcher LABEL: Just Record Records RELEASED: June 13th, 2015 From the Album: ... Human Disaster (Released April 5th, 2015)
Sam continues right into the next track of the album, bringing out a whole new sound with "How Long a Man Can Sit in a Bathtub with All the Lights Turned Off." The second track is the only song that is not written only by Sam Thatcher - it features the writing talent of Sam's two best friends Chris Schaffer (who also played percussion, bass, and guitar on the album) and Robby Coughlan (whose voice and fiddle is featured in the album as well). Sam had reportedly written the lyrics of the song as a short poem, and Chris and Robby made a instrumental beat to go along with it. When Chris and Robby played the song that they had written with Sam's words, Sam decided that the song had to go on the album. The track talks about the type of woman that Sam wants to find in his life - the type of woman who can see the beauty in tragedy. The song features many of the same lyrics repeated over and over, but put in different context. It also heavily features Robby Coughlan and - other backing vocalist - Andrew McGovern's voices with Sam Thatcher's.
The beat of "How Long a Man Can Sit..." is much faster than "A Special Report...", and that can be immediately seen from the first moment of the song. It starts with a quick acoustic guitar jam, played in an almost flamenco style before Sam and his backing singer's voices come in, harmonizing together to sing "Earth bound" four times in slow, melodic voices. When the first verse begins, the three men still sing together, but when Sam's voice being the loudest. Their voices are hollow and almost emotionless as they sing over the quick guitar beats, talking about the type of girl they want to date. This style continues into the second verse, where Sam's lyrics describe wanting a woman that's like an air traffic control tower, who will catch and grasp and hold him if he should fail. The men have just been singing over the sound of the guitar up until now, but when they finish the second verse, a steel drum starts playing with the guitar, adding a loud beat behind them, keeping rhythm with the quick guitar. The vocals sing the two verses again together, their voices quickening to keep up with the ever rising beat of the song.
The song doesn't stop growing in intensity as they continue into the song, repeating some of the same lyrics they had sung before, but now in a different order, adding different context to the words. Their voices repeat "Earth bound," four times again, but rather than the slow, melodic sound that they had before, they repeat the words quickly, almost sounding like they're running and they're out of breath. All the music quickly ends, and the listener hears Sam's voice alone in the silence sing, "I want someone who can deal with accidents." Then the music immediately picks back up again, going much faster than it ever had before. While Sam and Robby Coughlin sing the verse together, Andrew McGovern softly - but still very well-heard - sings "Earth bound," harmonizing with them. He continues until Sam and Robby sing the line, "Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold, clench and grasp and hold mechanical fail safes." Then Sam is singing the verse alone. While Andrew continues to harmonize "Earth bound," with Sam's voice, Robby is silent until Sam sings, "I want someone, I want someone who can deal with accidents." Then Robby's voice jumps into the song again, singing "I want someone who can deal with accidents," over the verse and Robby's voice. He adds, "Suspended over dust," when Sam sings, "Bodies built to withstand structural collapse, structural collapse," to add some randomization to the lyric pattern. Robby and Andrew's voices fade out, and Sam sings the last verse alone, the quick beat continuing to grow with more and more intensity as he sings, finally fading out as soon as he finishes the last word.
The song focuses a lot on airplane crashes, and the beauty that they can even happen in the world that we live in today. Sam points out in the first verse that there's infinite safety nets in the world, so there's "poetry" in the fact that plane crashes can even happen. The song focuses on Sam's want to find a woman who can recognize that fate must have a hand in everything that happens in the world if plane crashes can still happen, even with everything that human beings have developed to prevent them. He continues to say that he wants his woman to be his own safety net, who can hold him and help him if he happens to fails in his own life. As the lyrics repeat throughout the song, each verse puts those thoughts into different context - in some of them, he means the idea of a mechanical fail safe literally, talking about the fail safes that go into airplanes. But in some of them, he's talking about a metaphorical fail safe that he wants in his own life if something he is trying to do in his own life should fail. This speaks most true to Sam's career as a musical artist, especially since this is his debut album, he's asking for his girlfriend to be the person that should hold him up and help him if this endeavor should fail, and he's hoping that she'll see the beautiful and poetry in the fact that he even tried - even if it does fail in the end.
Earth bound, earth bound
Earth bound, earth bound
I want someone who can deal with accidents
I want someone who can appreciate the beauty of plane crashes
Someone who gets the poetry of critical failure
Within a system of infinite safety nets
I want someone who can deal with accidents
Air traffic control towers, jutting upward from the soil, oh
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold
Mechanical fail safes
I want someone who can deal with accidents
I want someone who can appreciate the beauty of plane crashes
Someone who gets the poetry of critical failure
Within a system of infinite safety nets
I want someone who can deal with accidents
Air traffic control towers, jutting upward from the soil, oh
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold
Mechanical fail safes
Earth bound, earth bound
Earth bound, earth bound
I want someone who can deal with accidents
Bodies built to withstand structural collapse, structural collapse
Mechanical fail safes
Pilots, radars, warning lights like red shadows
I want someone who can deal with accidents
Earth bound, earth bound
Earth bound, earth bound
I want someone who can deal with accidents
I want someone who can deal with accidents (Earth bound)
Someone who gets the poetry of critical failure (Earth bound)
I want someone who can deal with accidents (Earth bound)
Air traffic control towers, jutting upward from the soil, oh (Earth bound)
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold, clench and grasp and hold mechanical fail safes
I want someone who can deal with accidents
I want (Earth bound)
I want someone who can deal with accidents
Suspended over dust (Earth bound)
Someone who gets the poetry of critical failure
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold (Earth bound)
I want someone, I want someone who can deal with accidents
Suspended over dust (Earth bound) (I want someone who can deal with accidents)
Air traffic control towers, jutting upward from the soil, oh (I want someone who can deal with accidents)
Bodies built to withstand structural collapse, structural collapse (Earth bound) (Suspended over dust)
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold (I want someone who can deal with accidents)
Mechanical fail safes (Earth bound)
Air traffic control towers, jutting upward from the soil, oh
Bodies built to withstand structural collapse, structural collapse
Mechanical fail safes
I want someone, I want someone who can deal with accidents
Like giant arms to clench and grasp and hold
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