#interview part 3

Reporter McStrawman (RM): It’s not uncommon for one to put more thought into the construction of something than anyone will have looking at the something.

Leeah Swift (LS): Yeah, tell me about it. That’s definitely something that I appreciated the next track, Patrick Stump’s “Spot—

RM: Wait, I thought you gave me the track list so that I could prompt you with track names.

LS: It just seemed like a nice place to transition and I wouldn’t have thought the topics would line up like that. I kinda wanted and expected you to roll with it, to be honest. Bounce off the energy and all.

RM: Okay, shit, I’m sorry, so…the next track was “Spotlight (New Regrets)” by Patrick Stump. What were you starting to say about it?

LS: Well, just…I think Patrick Stump put a lot of thought into his solo work, it was very intentioned, against cynicism while sympathizing with it, valuing love above all else, but talk about it was really only in interviews and the music kinda spoke for itself, as it were, in performance; kind of the opposite of Fall Out Boy, their lyrics being kind empty, disjointed words flavored by violently misogynistic delusions of grandeur and stage presence just consisting of Pete Wentz babbling on about how much of a leader he sees himself as…I’ve lost my train of thought.

RM: We were talking about putting thought into one’s work, and you were saying Patrick Stump was a good example of that?

LS: Yes! I could’ve said that so much more briefly, but I’ve got a lot of thoughts on Patrick…I’ve got a fan letter sitting around that I am going to send sooner or later, first written by hand in the same notebook wherein I hand-wrote the first draft of the letter to my mother.

RM: Speaking of which, what’s the relevance of this track to the coming-out-to-mom thing overall?

LS: Some of these tracks are just good tunes I’ve got feelings about; I didn’t want to make this a catalogue of my gender songs. I can interpret a lot of songs as about being trans, but that’s really starting to hurt my head recently.

RM: I see.

LS: Yeah, I’m preemptively tired before even getting into this life…I’m doomed.

RM: Shit