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As far as making something more political, I think the truthful answer is I don’t know. But more of those ideas have certainly found a way into this record than anything I’ve done before.

5. “Golden Trunks”

Speaking of politics, there’s a line on this song that feels uncharacteristically bold: “The leader of the free world reminds you of a wrestler wearing tight golden trunks.”

Yeah, as soon as you say those words, it rather steals the show. But I was almost attracted to how cumbersome the phrase “the leader of the free world” is, especially now. There are some things that are really hard to get to work phonetically, but the tune somehow allows it. In this case, when I go, [sings grandly] “the leader of the free world,” it’s suddenly amusing. It’s kind of Disney, that melody.

But let’s talk about the rest of the track because that’s something I haven’t had the chance to really do. That song is definitely centered around a female character, and it’s the closest thing to a love song that’s on this record. I made this character, and she had this idea about what was going on. The line came to me through that; I thought of the WWF.

When you wrote this song, did you know that Trump really did take part in a professional wrestling match?

I did not know that then, but I do now.

6. “Four Out of Five”

This track has a sci-fi bent. It’s about a taqueria on the moon that’s called the Information Action Ratio, which is a reference to the idea of how we have so much knowledge at our fingertips but don’t quite know what to do with it.

Yeah. I lifted it from this book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. I was attracted to the idea as soon as I heard that phrase; even though it was in this book from [1985] it still seemed relevant—more relevant than it probably was when the guy made it up. I sang it into the tape recorder when I was making stuff up one day, and it ended up falling in a place where the implication was it was the name of this taco shop on the roof of this hotel complex.

Are you taking a bit of a critical stance as far as how we’re lost in this overflow of information?

I don’t think I am, necessarily. If I was doing that, I’d probably try to lay it out a bit better, rather than just naming the taco shop on the roof after it. I just think it’s interesting, something to look at.

7. “The World’s First Ever Monster Truck Front Flip”

The title of this song is based on a real event.

Yeah, it was a news story that came out one day that I clicked on. It’s remarkable. I mean, it’s definitely the most surprising thing I saw that day. It flipped forward!

How many times did you watch that video?

It might have just been the one.

8. “Science Fiction”

There’s a meta thing happening in this song, where you sing about writing songs…

… as we roll our eyes.

I enjoyed it! The song is something of an ode to sci-fi, what is it about that genre that appeals to you?

Science fiction creates these other worlds within which we can explore our own, and I wanted to write something about that idea. So, through reading sci-fi books and watching films like Fassbinder’s World on a Wire, I began to access that sort of vocabulary—then suddenly we’re talking about virtual reality moon casino experiences.

On this track, you sing about making a song that “may well just end up too clever for its own good.” Is it hard for you to turn that self-critical part of your brain off when you’re writing?

Evidently.

9. “She Looks Like Fun”

This track seems to take place in the realm of social media, and the random words in the chorus—“Good morning/Cheeseburger/Snowboarding”—are akin to scrolling through Instagram.

It’s about the characters that people create in that virtual world. As far as the “cheeseburger” line, I was actually watching an episode of the show “High Maintenance,” and there’s a part where the person’s taking their picture with a cheeseburger and posting it and all this. That part in the song also reminds me of when you’re reading a book and trying to get into it, but you can’t stop from looking at your phone. I might have been doing a bit of that when I was writing the song.

10. “Batphone”

On this track, you sing, “I launch my fragrance called Integrity/I sell the fact that I can’t be bought.” I looked it up, and there actually is a fragrance called Integrity now.

Oh, shit. I’m sure I checked when I wrote that, and it didn’t exist yet. So I’m probably going to get in trouble then, huh? With something like that, I can’t sit here and tell you I wanted to make some comment about integrity and my relationship to it, and then make a fucking perfume out of it and write a smart-ass line like that. It’s more like I see the shape of the letters of “integrity” on the perfume bottle in my mind’s eye—once you know what that font looks like, then it writes itself after that.

11. “The Ultracheese”

You’ve always seemed wary of being seen as a ponderous songwriter, but this album—and especially the lyrics—seems very properly thought out, in an engrossing way. Do you feel more comfortable in that role of a songwriter now?  

Certainly more so than when I was 18. There was something wrapped up in that word that used to make me uncomfortable, but I’m marginally more comfortable with it now.