| Arcade Fire – Reflektor Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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"It’s just a reflection of a reflection / Of a reflection of a reflection / Will I see you on the other side? / We all got things to hide" Fairly common philosophical ideas that go down a crazy rabbit hole. There's no true self, despite what we tell ourselves - we're only reflections of how we perceive ourselves, how others perceive us, how we perceive others, etc. Truth is relative, and therefore arbitrary. "The signals we send / Are deflected again / We're still connected / But are we even friends? / We fell in love when I was nineteen / And I was staring at a screen" Thus it complicates what love is. Who are we loving - the true self (if such a thing exists) or a perception (the reflection) of what we want to love? "Thought you would bring me to the resurrector / Turns out it was just a reflektor (It's just a reflektor)" This seems to say that God (the resurrector) is a sham, too. He's just a reflektor. Plays into the French bit sang by Régine, about being in a state between night and day, life and death. It's a song about Relativism, I think. (And that's Relativism with a capital "R".) Maybe a post-Nietzsche view of Relativism. It's because of this bit: "Our song escapes / On neon silver discs / Our love is plastic / We'll break it to bits / I want to break free / But will they break me? / Down, down, down / Don't mess around" One of Nietzsche's big ideas was that of the "übermensch" - the "overman" that could break free of the conventions of society and humanity to be his true self. Arcade Fire has been big on eschewing technology whenever possible and taking part in human connection (a big theme in The Suburbs), so this ties in with that pretty nicely, I think. And, of course, the chorus: "I thought I found a way to enter / It’s just a reflektor (It's just a reflektor) / I thought I found the connector / It’s just a reflektor (It's just a reflektor)" Win thought he found the key to understanding it all, but, welp, it's just a reflektor. You can't win! All hope is lost! |
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