The DJ Is Crying For Help
by AJR

Album: The Maybe Man (2022)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "The DJ Is Crying For Help" is a song about getting older when you've still got a younger soul inside.

    I'm all 17 at 35
    Now I don't know if there's anything else
    The DJ is cryin' for help


    Despite being in his 30s, singer Jack Met has yet to integrate into the traditional roles of society. While all his peers are living grown-up lives with jobs that pay the bills, he's "got no skills except gettin' high." Met worries there's something wrong with him for still retaining a teenage spirit.
  • The song concludes with Jack Met picturing himself as a DJ, waiting in vain for other people to turn up to a party.

    And now I'm all alone
    Waitin' 'til the party starts
    Be kind to me, be kind and wait it out


    According to AJR, "The DJ is Crying For Help" is about the fear of having peaked already. "You set these huge expectations for your life early on, and the song is about the moment when you realize life is not turning out the way you planned," they explained.
  • AJR released "The DJ Is Crying For Help" as a promotional single from their fifth album. In an Instagram Story Q&A session, AJR's musical craftsman Ryan Met said his favorite lyric on the record is from this song's opening verse.

    Everyone's laughin' at me
    But not like they used to
    The room's spinnin' all around me
    But not like I'm used to


    For years, folks made fun of Jack Met for being a big kid. Now that AJR has found success in a profession where you're expected to act young, people are laughing with him, not at him.
  • Austin Roa, AJR's touring photographer, shot the video. He filmed it on a cloudy day in Paris during a day off from the band's tour dates.

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