Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades

The lyrics of "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" tell the story of an inexperienced teenage boy being taken advantage of and losing his virginity to an older woman. Lacey stated that "I... figured that I wouldn't really have sex until either I was married or I knew I was with the right person. When you get to being 21, 22, 23 years old... it becomes this whole other thing, like 'Well, what am I doing? Is this really important to me?'"[2]

The music video for "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" portrays vocalist Jesse Lacey as a human voodoo doll, who has the ability to move the body parts of other people through moving his own. "Since the song is about taking advantage of someone else," he said, "there's a pretty strong correlation between the video and the song." The idea came from director Marc Webb, who held onto the idea for a long time.[3]

The video raises parallels to two videos by the band Yellowcard, the strongest of which is the appearance of a white lamb on the door to the bar that Jesse Lacey enters. The symbol is also present on the briefcase that Ryan Key carries through the videos for "Ocean Avenue" and "Rough Landing, Holly." This is because the videos were directed by Webb,[4] who used the lamb in his videos as a signature of sorts.

It was rumored that the silhouette figure during the last shot in the video is Geoff Rickly, lead singer of the band Thursday (who are from nearby New Jersey), although it was actually Todd Weinstock, guitarist for Glassjaw.

The 7" was pressed on light pink vinyl and features a demo version of the song "Jaws Theme Swimming." This demo song was recorded and mixed by Mike Sapone.

In 2013, the song was covered by American pop punk band We Are the In Crowd.