🎸✨ Lies, half-truths, and tall tales wrapped in indie rock, dipped in jangle pop, and sprinkled with post-punk irony. This track is basically a musical fact-checker: neighbors who “won the jackpot” but need bus money, ex-classmates with “beauty queens” who look more like haunted tiaras, and sweethearts whispering eternal love right before locking lips behind the grocery store.

It’s catchy. It’s bitter-sweet. It’s funny in the way only human delusions can be funny.
And yes, the song will be number one in the U.S. any day now… (or is that just another fantasy?).

Plug in your headphones, shake your head at the nonsense of life, and sing along:
“So it turned out to be… only fantasy.”

Lyrics:

She said she loves me, and there is only me,
Whispered sweet promises, like waves upon the sea.
But a few days later, what did I see?
Her kissing another man, behind the grocery.

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

My neighbor told me, with a sparkle in his eye,
He won the big jackpot, man, he touched the sky.
But the very next week, he’s knocking on my door,
“Could you lend me some money? I’m a little bit poor...”

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

An old classmate found me, on a late night street,
Said he married a beauty queen, the world at his feet.
But when she came ‘round the corner, truth hit me fast,
Let’s just say the pageant crown was stuck in the past...

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

Stories we tell, to shine a little more,
But when the mask slips, we’ve all heard it before.
Truth is a mirror, lies crack it apart,
Every cheap story leaves a scar on the heart.

And now I tell you, with a wink and a smile,
This song’s number one in the U.S. in a while.
But when the charts are out, and you look for me —
Well, guess what, friends? It’s pure fantasy...

So it turned out to be, only fantasy.
Cheap little words, but they never carried me.
So it turned out to be, only fantasy —
Painted-up tales with no reality.

Fantasy

1,039 / Smoothed out Slappy Hours

409 in Your Coffeemaker

Paper Lanterns (Live at WMMR, 1991)

Going to Pasalacqua

One for the Razorbacks (Live at WMMR, Minneapolis, MN, 4/18/91)

Knowledge

1,000 Hours

Why Do You Want Him?

The One I Want

Rest

Kerplunk!

Strangeland

New album Father Of All... out Feb 7. Hella Mega Tour w/ Green Day, Fall Out Boy + Weezer coming in 2021 http://hellamegatour.com