"The Pink Seashell" is a song by American rock band Fall Out Boy featuring Ethan Hawke. It is the seventh track on their eighth studio album, So Much (For) Stardust, and was released on March 24, 2023, through DCD2, Elektra and Fueled by Ramen.
Background[]
The track was revealed on March 3, 2023. Fall Out Boy released a snippet of the song on March 20.[1]
The lyrics are from the 1994 film Reality Bites. In an interview with NME, Pete Wentz said:
“There’s this bit in the movie Reality Bites where Ethan Hawke’s character talks about seeing his dad after he found out he had cancer. They’d talk about life and he gave Ethan’s character a pink seashell to help explain things. He realized the shell is empty and maybe life is pointless. ‘It’s all a random lottery of meaningless tragedy in a series of near escapes’, he says. That’s why he enjoys the little things in life, like eating a burger or smoking a cigarette. I think there’s a whole record from that perspective, taking part in these little pieces of life without the consequence. It’s important to not forget those little granular moments of life. To me, there’s a record in that pink seashell.”[2]
Official versions[]
| Version | Released on | Date | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [3] | Album | So Much (For) Stardust | Mar 24 2023 | 1:02 |
Lyrics[]
[Spoken: Ethan Hawke]
Parents got divorced when I was, uh, five years old
And I saw my father about three times a year after that
And when he found out that he had cancer, he decided to
To bring me here and he gives me this big pink seashell
And he says to me, "Son, the answers are all inside of this"
And I'm all, "What?"
Now then I realize, I realize that
The shell's empty, there's no point to any of this, it's all just a
A random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes
So I take pleasure in the detail, you know, a, a Quarter Pounder with cheese
Those are good
The sky about ten minutes before it started to rain
A moment where your laughter becomes a cackle
And I sit back
And I ride my own melt
References[]
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