| MGMT – Your Life Is A Lie Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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First of all, I just want to say that this song is just what I needed. I've been so unimpressed with all these new bands debuting who just have almost the exact same sound as others.. It's like, if I heard this song in a shop, would I even be able to tell which band it is, this one, this one or this one...... no? Haha okay anyway, MGMT definitely has a distinct sound, and Andrew has a distinct (beautiful) voice and I am just so happy this song was released. I think we get the gist, here.. basically, your life is a lie. There's not a whole lot more to it, but I feel I should add some of my interpretation and not only express my giddy glee for MGMT releasing new material. I could be way off base, but bear with me: It's pretty.. basic.. MGMT. Right? I mean I don't want to come off like I think I'm an MGMT expert who's analyzed every song, I'm don't, and I haven't. I'm not even sure how to describe this type of theme of MGMT's.. hm. Think of "If the sky was synthesized/You'd probably know" from Brian Eno, or "Geometric troops aligning" from Flash Delirium, or "We were fated to pretend" from Time to Pretend. Those probably aren't even the best examples, but the gist is conformity, and how conformity and sheep-like mentality and behavior is a joke, and a lie. It's doing what's expected of you without question under the guise of it being right and living a perfect, happy life, but in actuality it's a lie. I think each verse is like a point in time in your life (your lie of a life, of course). The first stanza is the your first realization that your life is a lie. Today, people are so ready to set themselves apart from anything conformist, it's not surprising that you'd find out pretty early that you may be living a lie. Maybe once you start going off to college, because I mean what else do you do, you start thinking your life is a lie. Next verse, you find out you don't even have real friends. Everyone's just a sheep and part of the grand scheme of your lie of a life (and theirs too). They're there on the surface, but if you look deeper, or "look again" they're just friends for the sake of being friends probably, because everyone's got to have friends, right? By the third verse, you've gotten married, and you realize that you probably only wed because it's what was expected of you and what was right, you don't really have any individuality about you. You had your doubts when you were younger, but you went on to get your fake friends, and you would have thought you had learned after they all left you, now wouldn't you?! But you didn't. You went and got your fake wife, and she leaves you or you leave her or whatever. "You will survive on your own." Fourth verse is just looking for hope in anyone, I think. Maybe you had an old flame or a high school crush and you think "She's different. I'll find her and everything will change, I'll do a complete 180. She's not like the others." But she probably is, she's no one, she's nowhere, and now you're just left waiting to die. Your life is a lie. By the fifth verse, you're now an old bitter man who's done nothing and got nothing except your tired, failed lie of a life. You're about to die alone, and down to the very end ("On your own/One more time"), your life was a lie. Back at the divorce verse, something happened. You told your wife your lives were lies, she understands and agrees and you split up. That was like your mid-life crisis probably, you know? You realized your life was a lie, but the best (worst), most ironic part, is you're supposed to think your life is a lie at that point in time. You probably think "I finally realized, my life's a lie!" but even that supposed realization is a part of your lie of a life. That is, I think, how you go from apparently knowing that your life is a lie in the third verse, to "Not knowing that/Your life is a lie" by the fourth. I love the video, especially that part at 1:50 where the man drops his briefcase looking at the wall that reads "your life is a lie", it's just perfect. |
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