| Vampire Weekend – Step Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| the themes of this album are death, mortality, God and love--and the general fleetingness of things. This is the only song that isn't explicitly centered around ut death or God, but read between the lines and it's there. "Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl". "You" in this stanza is either God or death. Every time he is out in the world death/God comes up again--reminders that his girl is going to be taken away from him. "You cursed the sun when it stepped to your girl". Really the songs are about anger at the fleetingness of mortality--nothing lasts forever. Life experiences--going to Angkor Wat, traveling the world--the wisdom teeth--he's growing up and coming to terms with mortality. He's a bit angry about all this. Then there's the punks getting cold from the "Snow falling slow to the sound of the Master". Young punks think they know it all. They don't. Their ego-centric and don't get how small they are in the face of mortality (and possibly God). | |
| Arcade Fire – Half Light I Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The band said that they wanted this album to sound like the music they heard growing up. It's fun to try a put the connections together Alot of other people have pointed these two out: Modern Man = Jesse's Girl Sprawl II = Heart of Glass I think this one has quite a bit in common with "Never Tear us Apart" by INXS. Anyone else? |
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| Arcade Fire – Modern Man Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Understanding this song it's important to have a good understanding of what is modernity versus supposed post-modernity. Modernity was the result of the French Revolution (and Enlightenment thinking that was hand in hand with the revolution) and the industrial revolution. Since the 19th century, plenty of philosophers and social scientist spent alot of time studying what exactly changed along with modernity (Karl Marx, Max Weber, Herbert Marcuse etc etc etc). So modernity has been here since the 19th century and post-modernism is a movement of the late 20th century. One of the features of modernity was man became more self-reflexive--he became able to see himself and question his life and his culture using new tools such as the scientific method and rationalism. This is in contrast to a more traditional "pre modern" society in which things just ARE. The englightenment said that this was a good thing--now man can uplift himself. However, with the industrial revolution and international capitalism a system developed that traps man into becoming a commodity himself (wage labor) while endless products (other commodities) become his obsession. Back to the song: "The clock keeps ticking" - modernity made time a commmodity. It's a part of that wage labor that man has become "They say we are the chosen few But we're wasted" - the enlightenment said that we can now uplift ourselves with out new knowledge and achieve greatness--but it didn't end up that way "In my dream I was almost there And you pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere" - here's that self-relexivity -he knows that he wants to go somewhere and is conscious of that process. He also knows somewhere deep down, maybe in th sub-conscious knows he's not going anywhere he's just stuck in the same game. And where is he headed for after all this work and soul searching and waiting? "And that's why we're still waiting On a number from the modern man" Turns out he's waiting to here from just another modern man--turns out that modern men are not just players in the game of life--we're also the architects of the whole system. So what to do? Stuck in modernity? "I erase the number of the modern man Want to break the mirror of the modern man" "Erase the number"--break out of the capitalist game of commodified labor and fetishized commodities. "break the mirror of the modern man" --end the reflexivity, rationalism and modern knowledge that is making life a hell as opposed to uplifting man's condition. |
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