It Doesn't Mean A Thing

Airborne leader Mikel Jollett grew up as a poor child of itinerant hippie parents and his upbringing has had an effect on his songwriting. This song is about his father. Jollet told Spinner about his folks: "My dad did three years in Chino before I was born and when he got out, he got clean. He was on heroin and stole credit cards, all this s--t, but he cleaned up. A lot of people don't and since I was born, he's been clean. He has this way of thinking about life where it's just like 'If something's not good then just move the f--k down the road. Pack up and move to the next spot.' He's always sort of seen it that way. A lot of parents put a lot of head-trips on their kids that they've got to be a certain person to make their dads proud, like somebody spends all this time going to law school but they don't want to be a lawyer. I never felt that way for a minute. My parents were glad I did graduate from high school, but there was always a sense of 'Here's the world, do what you're gonna do. Try to do something important, stick around family, don't be an a-----e, maintain some humility and if your situation gets f--ked up, move down the road.'"