Sensitive Kid

Album: Mine Is Yours (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Cold War Kids lead singer Nathan Willett wrote this about the aftermath of his parents' breakup. As a teenager, he would get in trouble by throwing big parties at his empty house while his mom went out on dates. He was often told to grow up and stop being such a "sensitive kid," even though he was reacting to what the adults in his life were doing.

    "I think the song 'Sensitive Kid' is the most autobiographical," he explained to Interview Magazine. "I wanted it to be an uncomfortable thing to sing in front of people, and have to go to that place every single night. You always develop a certain distance from something you sing all the time, and it does become kind of fictional in a way. Everything becomes an embellishment—it is interesting to take more 'true' stories and watch them grow larger."

    Matt Maust, the band's bass guitarist, added: "All along the way, we thought that there was no way that song would be on the record. We would work on it a bit, and Nathan especially was like, 'I don't know how that could even appear.' And then when we were finished, we thought about making it the first single." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Bertrand - Paris, France
  • This was used on Gossip Girl in the 2011 episode "Shattered Bass."

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