Muse – The 2nd Law: Isolated System

My InterpretationEven if this might be one of the more unusual songs of MUSE (alone with regards to the musical texture of it) it still perfectly conveys their overall message, though from another point of view this time.

This is not an angry song but intends to portray the fragility of our lives and our planet in general. The soft melody carries a hint of hopelessness and urgency in itself: We should take care at last, time is nearly gone. So do the different randomly chosen interview bits. The chorus strenghtens this and applies a feeling that furtherly softens the listener to become aware of the missing meaning in our modern lives and the senselessness of where we are headed.

The heartbeat seems young like the one of a child and so conveys a strong emotional edge. Going along with what I said before, I think it is to portray the heartbeat of the very earth or of our human lives or life in general. At the same time its pace could also mean that it is overexerting itself all the time and heading for a heart attack. Still, it never slows or stops towards the end, it runs on but becomes ever more quiet. The downtuning fadeout at the end might want to allogorize that our system will be turned down, one way or another.

This is why I think that it is a real astonishing piece of music, something written by a young father who worries about the world his child is to live in.

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  @musemymuse

Lyric Correction[Instrumental]

The song includes no vocals, the main part is the piano and it ends with the voice of a woman in a loop.

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  @bckyltylr

General CommentWhile there are no actual lyrics there is a bit of verbiage in the song, by way of news broadcasts and the like. Because Unsustainable uses a news broadcast sound for its lyrics, perhaps Isolated System should have its transcript written out?

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  @bckyltylr

General CommentThis is not copied. This is heard from listening!

Vocals from female broadcaster: "In an Isolated system, entropy can only increase." Repeats 12X

Vocals from male broadcasters: "over 20 blocks away, a low income housing project. Residents hope to find a..." Skips to another male broadcaster about "voting for EU

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  @volwarrior
  +1

  REDO:
  
  1st man: "Over 20 blocks away, at a low-income housing project...residents opened fire"
  
  2nd man: "Voters transpired from the EU & it's own members. Also about ____."
  
  main woman: "the power of weak & unworthy..."
  
  3rd man: "we're finding ourself out of control. I think we have to go rolling to the middle way & try to find some answer what the union city wants."
  
  4th man: "their friends set out an emotionally-charged impact statement....Ever short of deadlines, known as BEATING THE CLOCK..."
  
  "In An Isolated System; Entropy Can Only IncreaSE.........." Repeat 100X
  
  ENJOY.
  
  I did not copy these words. One has 2 listen to the song fifty times to listen to the mocked journalists. I think that is Matt's point in this song. As THEY give us so many words of NEWS every day no one can even RECALL what the news just told us...

  Flagged volwarrioron November 02, 2012  

My InterpretationI honeslty think that this is the world's way of resetting life on earth... the piano and the overall song, although soft, is intense. The music video depicted something that took human's lives, and only stopped when everyone was gone...

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  @XanderMax

My Opinionsong meaning is basically self explanatory: . Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or isolated society. We do not have the power to sustain what we are consuming as in vital resourse in a closed system. We are aslo growing like a plague, or virus.. Guess our only hope as a human race is to figure out a way to travel to another planet but we lack the knowelege to do this, we would need to discover a new type of technology and energy resource and quickly in hope to inhabit another world. Guess we are doomed.

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  @savvi

General CommentThe video helped me see this
iguess its about running away from something we all know will come
in the video u see them running from something invisible
i think this is about a ecological crysis that we all know will come
but choose to run from it but with no use

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  @dors