| Arcade Fire – Afterlife Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[Radioheadfanat:6832] I actually agree with this interpretation. First, it's apparent that there's a negative connotation to the word "Afterlife," and that's when the lyrics says "Afterlife, oh my God, what an awful word." It's awful because there's no consensus on what it is, and of which there's no absolute meaning that is evident to everyone. It's basically a New-Age term that everyone seems to frown upon. Then the lyrics enumerate several instances of the end of life, that is death: "After all the breath and the dirt And the fires that burn And after all this time And after all the ambulances go" And then it says: "And after all the hangers-on are done Hanging on to the dead lights Of the afterglow" and here I contend that the afterglow refers to the Light that is commonly associated with the experience of death, and the passing onto the afterlife. Now it's apparent that the lyrics understands something of this thing, so called afterlife, but there's an internal struggle as to what it Is. "I've gotta know Can we work it out?" Can we understand and explain the Afterlife? "We scream and shout 'till we work it out Can we just work it out? Scream and shout 'till we work it out? 'Till we work it out, 'till we work it out 'Till we work it out, 'till we work it out" We argue day and night with everyone if it's true, we argue to work it out, to understand it and know what it is! "Afterlife, I think I saw what happens next It was just a glimpse of you Like looking through a window Or a shallow sea Could you see me?" And this is apparently similar to descriptions of the afterlife in several religions, that the souls stay there without bodies, and that you can identify these souls with a certain feeling and without actually seeing them physically. "And after all this time It's like nothing else we used to know" Because the experience the lyricist is having is so unlike that of worldly life. "After all the hangers-on are done Hanging on to the dead lights Of the afterglow" same light associated with death, and I think in the music video there's a white street light when this part comes. "But you say Oh, when love is gone Where does it go? And you say Oh, when love is gone Where does it go? And where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go?" Here love is an experience we feel with everyone, and especially with those closer to us, but when that experience finishes, and the day folds, we start a new day with only a memory of that experience, but where does that Love actually go? It seems that it goes to the same place we all go to afterlife "where do we go?" "And after this Can it last another night?" Can that experience of afterlife stay longer for the lyricist. "After all the bad advice Had nothing at all to do with life" It seems to me that this bad advice is the whole understanding of life and the various philosophies and ideas shared about the world, namely nihilism, materialism and postmodernism, have nothing to do with actual life and reality. May God be with you! |
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