“I have a very, very hard time not thinking about “Fuck and Run” as being specifically about Oberlin, which both Phair and I attended. Her lyrics are word for word conversations that happened there every Saturday morning, and maybe still do, for all I know. Phair implicates herself in the syndrome: the fact that she thinks it’s “stupid old shit” is precisely the problem at Oberlin, relationship-wise. Everyone is too self-conscious about being cliched to enjoy normal things, and so has to try too hard to be alterna-teens even if it fucks them up. Oberlin kids are nothing if not ahead of the curve in terms of being self-centered, and it’s interesting to see this syndrome repeat itself on a wider scale now. The point here is that the songs are saying the same thing only if you’re unable to implicate yourself in the problem, as I think Phair does and Rivers doesn’t.”