Control is the third full-length album by Pedro the Lion

Pedro the Lion

Pedro the Lion was an indie rock band from Seattle, Washington. Singer-songwriter David Bazan formed the band in 1995 and represented its main creative force, backed by a varying rotation of collaborating musicians. T. W. Walsh is considered to be the sole official band member besides Bazan. In...

. It was released on April 16, 2002 on Jade Tree Records

Jade Tree Records

Jade Tree International, Inc. was an independent record label formed by Darren Walters and Tim Owen in August 1991, out of Wilmington, Delaware....

. It is a concept album about a business man who is having an affair on his wife, who kills him. It covers such subject matter as infidelity, parenthood, greed, vengeance, and fear of death.

Track listing

All songs by Bazan

David Bazan

David Bazan is an indie rock singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Bazan was the lead singer and creative force behind the now-defunct band Pedro the Lion and was the lead singer of Headphones, a band he formed out of his interest in synthesizers...

 except "Penetration" and "Second Best", which were co-written with Casey Foubert.

1. "Options" – 3:56
2. "Rapture" – 3:26
3. "Penetration" – 3:55
4. "Indian Summer" – 3:21
5. "Progress" – 4:09
6. "Magazine" – 4:01
7. "Rehearsal" – 3:48
8. "Second Best" – 6:00
9. "Priests And Paramedics" – 4:35
10. "Rejoice" – 3:11

Personnel

• David Bazan
  David Bazan
  David Bazan is an indie rock singer-songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Bazan was the lead singer and creative force behind the now-defunct band Pedro the Lion and was the lead singer of Headphones, a band he formed out of his interest in synthesizers...
  
   – vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  , guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  s, bass guitar
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  
• Casey Foubert – bass guitar, keyboards, guitars, percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  
• Design and Illustration by Ryan Clark
  Ryan Clark (musician)
  Ryan Clark is an American graphic designer and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Demon Hunter, which he co-founded with his brother, guitarist Don Clark.-Early life and career:...
  
  for Asterik Studio

Storyline

• The album opens with "Options," in which the main character, a married business man, tells his wife that he wouldn't divorce her "without a good reason." This is done while walking down a beach with his wife, "breaking the spell" of the romantic atmosphere.
• "Rapture" then tells of the husband having sex with another woman. The climax is compared to the joy of Christ returning in the rapture, which in the context of the album contrasts with the misery of his sex life with his wife, as told in "Second Best."
• In "Penetration," the main character's callousness is expanded upon, casually firing a subordinate as if picking him last for on the playground. He gives the man this advice, which he relates to him as his secret to success: "If it isn't penetration, then it isn't worth the kiss."
• "Indian Summer," we see into the main character's inflated self-perception, where he is lauded as a miracle worker, politically, economically, and scientifically. He also views himself as a loving father who is loved by their father.
• "Progress" shows the children's relationship with their mother, to whom they are disrespectful and disobedient. It is a direct contrast to the heroic father the main character views himself as, expressing fears of what their children will grow up to be like.
• "Magazine" is the main character's reaction to someone rebuking him and his rebelling against their reproach and further embracing his iniquities.
• In "Rehearsal," his wife discovers his affair and mocks him, calling him "unoriginal," and threatens to murder him, which she sardonically says is also unoriginal.
• "Second Best" is a meditation on the wife's reaction in her less vengeful moments. The song recounts several short scenes from his affair and compares it to their extinguished and laborious romance, and the wife, defeated, decides that she could learn to be at peace with being "second best" in his life.
• "Priests and Paramedics" is the most straightforward story on the album. It follows the paramedics as they tend to "broken bodies all day long." One of the people they come in contact with is the husband, who has been stabbed by his wife during a fight. He asks the paramedics if he's going to die, and the paramedics, "trained to lie," tell him that he is not. The story then cuts to his funeral, where a weary priest tells those in attendance that everyone is going to die someday, and that he doesn't understand why people try to "prolong the pain of being alive."
• "Rejoice" is a meditation on the pain and misery and failure and callousness showcased in the album previously. The song is a wish for everything to be meaningless, and a lament that, instead, everything is so meaningful, and that "most everything turns to shit." A sarcastic or ironic refrain of "rejoice" is then sung.