With characteristic nonchalance, Milton illuminates another cobwebbed corner of the human psyche: the great hoax that is growing up. He takes us on a tour of his childhood delusions: a gripping self-consciousness, a fairy tale fantasy world, a naive denial of mortality. The punch line? Like most childhood delusions, they never really go away; we just learn to be embarrassed of them.
My favorite part of this song, besides the entire second verse ('I went looking for my life/in every book that I read/I was posing for the camera/shooting a movie in my head'), is the sweet irony that only in admitting one's deep and unflagging childishness can one ever hope to be a grown up. Here as always, it is Milton's casual honesty that makes him so surprising, so endearing, and so profound.
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