After detailing his battle with leukemia and subsequent treatment on 2008's The Glass Passenger and the documentary Dear Jack, Jack's Mannequin frontman Andrew McMahon has shifted his gaze to relationships for the band's upcoming third album, People and Things. We've got the lead single and lyric video, "My Racing Thoughts," for you below -- a poetic pop track that sounds like classic Bruce Springsteen filtered through John Mayer's "No Such Thing."
While writing People and Things, McMahon had some clear lyrical ideas: "My goal with many of the songs was to strip away the flowery language and sentiment attached to newer love and replace it with starker, less-blinded language about more binding love," McMahon said. "Marriage is a bit of a beast to tackle in a pop record, but when I wrote 'My Racing Thoughts,' it became clear how powerful and loaded a subject this kind of love is and somewhere in that moment I began to lock into the broad concept for the writing sessions to come."
Starker indeed. While the music remains true to the band's pop background, McMahon sings, "So I'm hiring a DJ/For the eve of our destruction/It was midnight I was mixed up/When she found me on the beach." It's a refreshing dichotomy that showcases a wry yet still powerful side of McMahon.
People and Things is due out Oct. 4 on Sire Records.
+ Watch Jack's Mannequin's "My Racing Thoughts" video.