The album plays like a book of short stories set to music, populated with characters like a mournful widower whose �love makes her bed/where poppies grow over her head� (�Poppy-Red�), a divorcee who sarcastically reassures his wife that �when your friends point out you're stuck with/a Neanderthal for an ex/don't fret about it, darling/I still sign my name on cheques� (�Mr. Stupid�), a dissolute husband and wife each cheating on the other yet wearily resigned to �the job of man and wife� and �the old comforts of the missionary life� (�Johnny's Far Away�) and in the album's standout track, �Dad's Gonna Kill Me,� a terrified young soldier stationed in Baghdad (abbreviated �Dad�) pondering his own mortality: �I've got a wife, a kid, another on the way/I might get home if I can live through today/Before I came out here I never used to pray/Nobody loves me here.�

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