I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar

I Am All That I Need / Arroyo Seco / Thumbprint Scar

Fleet Foxes

This is the opening track on Crack-Up. In an interview lead singer Robin Pecknold gave with The Australian, Pecknold states that the format – the slow, somber opening which breaks into bright, up-tempo strumming – was intended to “make people worried that the album would be really depressing before it becomes the opposite. Sometimes I need to be cheered up and so does the listener.”

The song features two conflicting voices: a low, quietly-mumbling pessimist and a more high-pitched, belting voice who argues with them.

The lyrics suggest that the song could be about Pecknold fighting with himself, fighting with someone else, or wrestling with something more abstract, such his returning to music after exploring other avenues at Columbia Univeristy. It could also be an amalgamation of all or some of these things, as they are mutually interchangeable in the context of the song.

The doubt and insecurity of the first is interrupted by the bright and argumentative second verse. The song returns to its former frame of mind in the third verse, and in the final verse the argument gives way to clarity, reflection, and Narrator moves forward.