Foster the People "Pumped Up Kicks" (2010)

Robert's got a quick hand.
He'll look around the room, he won't tell you his plan.
He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth, he's a cowboy kid.
Yeah, he found a six shooter gun.
In his dad's closet hidden with a box of fun things, and I don't even know what.
But he's coming for you, yeah he's coming for you.

If you are under 35, you probably caught this as it was a very popular song. It charted very well, but I think a lot of older people missed it. It is yet another example an upbeat tune masking dark lyrics. The Ravonettes "Here Comes Mary"(2005)  (and soon to be featured here) comes to mind and is a nice match as that song is about a girl being bullied whereas this one is about getting inside the head of someone who is bullied and out for revenge. Gil Scott-Heron's "The Bottle" (1974) is another example of a danceable song with ominous lyrics.

Foster the People is really Mark Foster, who hails from Cleveland, Ohio, but later moved to LA. Mark started it all as a solo project while working writing commercial jingles. Later, Foster brought in Bassist Cubbie Fink and Mark Pontis to play drums. Other than a EP,  "Torches" is their only album release to date. The band does not seem to be touring.

As for "Pumped Up Kicks," It had been said that it is a song you can sit and analyse or get up and dance to.

A explanation of the songs meaning came from Mark Foster during an interview with Spinner UK:
"Pumped Up Kicks" is about a kid that basically is losing his mind and is plotting revenge. He's an outcast I feel the youth in our culture are becoming more and more isolated. It's kind of an epidemic. Instead of writing about the victims of some tragedy, I wanted to get into the killer's mind, like Truman Capote did in In Cold Blood. I love to write about characters. That's my style. I really like to get inside the heads of  other people and try to walk in their shoes."

Foster points out that there is no violence in the song other than the pictures painted in the kid's mind.

"Pumped Up Kicks" was a viral release in 2010 that grew in popularity and was being played on radio long before the album was released. It was this song that got Foster a recording contract.