From the album Boat Songs
Lenderman uses the 1997 "flu game" conspiracy theory as a Trojan horse for talking about drinking yourself sick. The song pretends to care about whether Michael Jordan got food poisoning, then drops the mask to admit it is really about the narrator's own relationship with getting wrecked.
Jordan wanted to sign / With Adidas for shoes / But Nike gave him an offer / That he could not refuse
This opener sounds like sports trivia night, deliberately mundane. Lenderman sets up the song like casual barroom talk before it curves into something more honest about self-destruction.
It wasn't a pizza that poisoned him in Utah / With a hotel bill to prove / Three thousand dollars on just five dudes
The detail work here does two things at once. It namedrops the famous conspiracy while that three-thousand-dollar tab plants the seed that excess is the real subject, not basketball history.
I bought fake Jordans / They weren't even shoes / Oh, he looked so sick / It was all over the news
The logic breaks down on purpose. Fake Jordans that are not even shoes, the sudden image of Jordan looking sick. Lenderman is writing like someone half-drunk, thoughts bouncing around without clean transitions.
But it wasn't the pizza / And it wasn't the flu / Yeah, I love drinking too / I love drinking too
The whole song snaps into focus. That "too" lands hard because it connects the narrator's drinking to Jordan's rumored night before the game. The repetition sounds like someone trying to convince themselves it is fine.
Lenderman writes a drinking song disguised as sports talk, then pulls the rug to show they were always the same conversation. The genius is in how long he keeps up the misdirection before admitting what this is really about.