Empire Ants

The song's about the everyday person (the ants of the title), but a cog in the machinery of society("Your little feet working the machine"), who uses music("polyphonic prairies") as escapism. The first part, that 2D (Albarn) sings, describes how even as the world falls apart around us, music allows us to float away and above the disaster; the second part, sung by Noodle (or Little Dragon, however you want to see it), talks about how we trudge through societies obligations and niceties, using our personal dreams as motivation to keep going ("Little dreams,working the machine"), hoping either to make them come true, or to move society forward, instead of just letting it idle in place ("Will it spin? Will it soar?")

Oh, joys arise, the sun has come again to hold you

-The happiness that morning brings when something happens you expect.

Sailing out the doldrums of the morning

-Going through the morning calmly.

The polyphonic prayer is here, it's all around you It's all around you out here

-How music today washes over us, and takes place into our part of waking up.

And if the whole world is crashing down on you Fall through space, out of mind with me

-And instead of waking up calmly, and nicely... TO something, you wake up to a horrible life, a horrible existence, a horrible experience; Let your mind go.

Where the emptiness we leave behind on warm air rising Those are the shadows far away

-When you finally leave, you look at the negativity in your life, your negative existence (by your standards) and you see that all of it is just 'warm air rising', or in your mind. In those shadows, far away.

The falling of the whole empire, it's here to hold you Rolling out and haunted till it sinks

-And while everything collapses, good or bad, there's a unification in how if all the world breaks and cracks, we all offer our hands out. But we know we'll roll out of the destruction, and sink back into the corruptive behavior our world is doomed to.

Noodle (Little Dragon): Little memories, marching on Your little feet working the machine

-Waking up, you immediately assume the position of moving the world. We've done it all our child-hood, and we've never had the chance to grow up, inside ourselves, because we've constantly moved the machine, 'with out little feet'. The memories of our childhood just march on through our head, whenever we think of this.

Will it spin? Will it soar? My little dream working the machine

-You have no idea how the world will go for you when you wake up. Will the world just spin- will it be dull, and crappy? Will it soar- will it be meaningful?

Soothe like a wave It passes far

-When we trudge through the day, we want disruption. We want chaos, and in our minds, it's soothing.

Closing in on the moon From where we are

-Having the chaos over-take even the moon, but just in our mind. It'll never happen.

Overall, I believe this song hits on how the human mind thinks and how we are when we first wake up into the day, how our existence as an 'ant' tends to feel like an entire 'empire' on our shoulders. It just speaks of our feelings day to day. Routine feelings, because we are like ants, in constant routine, doing whatever we do. And sometimes in an ants routine, a human steps on it's ant-hole, and ruins a colony. We didn't know if that day would soar, or spin. Just a thought.

One of my favorite's off Plastic Beach. I just love how the song just explodes right before Little Dragon's part.

I can't quite figure out the whole meaning of this song. But, it seem's like there is a hint of child labor with the line, "Your little feet working the machine."

We're just done humoring the antics of Neptune's waterbreathers, when we hear the beautiful singing of this man who is wandering along a hill...accompanied by such ethereal strings...we are absolutely enthralled by this airy being who sings with such peace about the ultimate harmony of this land. We follow where he leads.

And cresting the hill, we see our destiny...an endless field of people marching along, seemingly lost in memory, repeating and retreading with their little feet...their little dreams...all in service of keeping Tha Machine (the Stylo?) going...creating their own little pieces of it that may spin or soar...all part of a beautiful order...

Luckily, we're able to evade the alluring singer and this mechanic fate...running beyond the borders of this ant empire.

It starts getting colder...

Pretty sure it's:

And if the whole world is crashing down, Fall through space, out of mind "with me"

This Song is Amazing! One of their greatest :) really lovable to any pop fan hard to even ignore

this song is beautiful. The contrast of the first part with the second part is just amazing. I haven't figured it out what the lyrics means but I think that with time I'll understand them.

this song is great to blast in your car with the windows down....i love this entire album....amazing!

There seems to be missing or wrong lyrics, other lyrics sites got wrong lyrics copied and pasted. there is a line in this song, "soon, like a wave, that has to fall. doesn't matter who, but who you are." this site is missing the word wave, other sites have the word whale in place of wave. I like how this song the guy is polite saving the better sounding half of the song for the later on chick to sing, i feel sorry for people who don't give this song a chance if they thought the beginning is slow, though the beat picks up and it starts to flow. this song is dreamy and the beginning of the song has the sound wayne and garth used to make from wayne's world, impersonating a dream sequence, perhaps piano keys going down in a way.. adv. (brain)wave~midi for telepathic music making, needing autototalcompletemusicproducingprocessing well beyond autotune merely, then wayne and garth type will have more help creating the dreamy sound of the songs more easily and readily and steadily just by their voices, whistles what have you, or else no finding it on the piano keys.. so when the adv. music tech machine is there it'll be quite a dream, like the song sings.. like a beat box machine, mainly only mouth control may then exact people's timing and frequency shifts regarding percussion or drum beats, "ur ee" such impersonates record scratching so thus a realistic record scrtching sound should reflect after that, obv. we'll need complete competence beyond pieces of components..

I wanna talk about this specific part, which gives me two different perspectives

"Little memories marching on, their little dreams/feet working the machine"

For me, it's either talking about how we're actually NPCs in a simulation, and we keep 'working the machine' by living.

Or it's about how we make the 'machine' (in this case, it would be the corporations and wealthy people) grow by trying to accomplish our own dreams