← archive index · live page · raw markdown

Don't Know Much

Metadata

title
Don't Know Much
meaning
Little Hug epistemology: don't know much about anything, idiot that knew it, books can't save me, so what, so what: who's in charge of darkness and light when everything is grey.
year
2021
release
Little Hug
releaseType
EP
artist
Scoobert Doobert
artistId
#scoobert
credits
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp.
spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/08qm91rIDQEj86DoQWiNyB
youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVRJ5E4spXs
apple
https://music.apple.com/us/album/dont-know-much/1558296985?i=1558297086
officialVideo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCHW0_DCD6c
themes
  • anxiety
  • impostor syndrome
  • Little Hug
  • recovery
  • humility
  • philosophy
  • Socratic irony
isrc
QZNWU2063474
isrcSource
soundexchange
draft
false

Lyrics

No, I don't know that much about anything
Yeah, I'm feeling stupid
An idiot that knew it
You wonder why I'm quiet

No, I don't know that much about anything
Is it frightening?
Maybe
I don't think books can save me
You wonder if I'm crazy

No, I don't know that much about anything
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

Yeah
Yeah I am always acting a fool
Normally I'm fueled with anxiety
Now and then I try to act cool
Falling on my face
Yeah, I am good at reading a room
Learn to laugh it off with impunity
Easier to say than do

No, I don't know that much about anything
Yeah, I'm feeling stupid
An idiot that knew it
You wonder why I'm quiet

No, I don't know that much about anything
Is it frightening?
Maybe
I don't think books can save me
You wonder if I'm crazy

So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

No, I don't know that much about anything
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be right
What the hell does that word mean anyway
Yeah, who's in charge of darkness and light
When everything is grey

No, I don't know that much about anything
Yeah, I'm feeling stupid
An idiot that knew it
You wonder why I'm quiet

No, I don't know that much about anything
Is it frightening?
Maybe
I don't think books can save me
You wonder if I'm crazy

So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

No, I don't know that much about anything
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what

So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
So what
Yeah

Content

Track ten on Little Hug (April 2021), also a standalone single (February 2, 2021) ahead of the EP. Luke solo. Not a cover of the Linda Ronstadt / Aaron Neville ballad; same title phrase, different confession, with incompetence as identity rather than romance. Official music video.

The verses are a self-portrait of someone who pretended to know and has now gone quiet: an idiot that knew it, frightened, unconvinced that books can save me, with other people's diagnosis (you wonder if I'm crazy) hanging in the air. Socratic irony in pop form — the voice that once played expert now only knows that it doesn't know. The bridge names the coping for what it is, social intelligence as a survival skill (good at reading a room / learn to laugh it off with impunity / easier to say than do), and then opens onto the real question: who's in charge of darkness and light / when everything is grey. Not nihilism for sport, just moral certainty dissolving with no binary left to stand on. The so what stacks seven, eight, sixteen times, less defiance than surrender, a hook that refuses to learn and only repeats until it tires out.

It's the same doubt that runs through Derrida Makes a Différance on Masks and Monsters and later The Bent Stick, and an idiot that knew it prefigures I'm an Idiot and Who Am I Really Fooling Anyway. Late on Little Hug, doubt before the named grief of Debby and the comfort of A Little Hug, and the opposite register from MMM's cartoon certainty.