I know it's already been said that this song is actually a series of references to "L'Etranger," but I feel the following fact can't be stressed enough: any person who thinks that this song is about war in the Middle East, or hate crimes against Arabs, or wanton murder, is a fucking moron.
Meursault is a man whose mannerisms and worldveiw no one understands. He helps the pimp next door, whom he barely knows, trick, humiliate, and get away with badly beating a mistress of his, who is "the Arab's" sister. He does not cry or outwardly show emotion at his mother's death, because he led a life detached from her and from the world around him. He agrees to marry a girl with whom he thoroughly enjoys having sex and spending time, but whom he admits (to her face) that he does not love. He kills the Arab because the oppressive heat and light from the sun made him behave irrationally. He alienates the examining magistrate when he admits that he does not believe in God, and reduces the prison chaplain to tears when he shouts that God cannot help him or anyone else, because everyone is doomed to the same fate. He is not sorry for what he has done, and he sees the death sentence he receives (as a result of his callous personality, not of his murdering the Arab) as little more than an expedient to an inevitable outcome--his death, hence Meursault's assertion that "one life is as good as another," and Smith's lines "I can turn and walk away or I can fire the gun...Whatever I choose, it amounts to the same: absolutely nothing. I'm alive, I'm dead."
This song is about the ultimate meaninglessness of any action that one might take, insofar as its ability to change the outcome of one's life, and one's obligation to commit to and "own" the choices one has made, regardless of that fact. Whether or not Camus is a true existentialist notwithstanding (he did, after all, include the disturbing little robot woman to negatively portray complete detachment from the human race), Meursault is, and he has none of Kirkegaard's faith and none of Sartre's humanism, and he is the narrator of both "The Stranger" and "Killing an Arab."
I know it's already been said that this song is actually a series of references to "L'Etranger," but I feel the following fact can't be stressed enough: any person who thinks that this song is about war in the Middle East, or hate crimes against Arabs, or wanton murder, is a fucking moron.
Meursault is a man whose mannerisms and worldveiw no one understands. He helps the pimp next door, whom he barely knows, trick, humiliate, and get away with badly beating a mistress of his, who is "the Arab's" sister. He does not cry or outwardly show emotion at his mother's death, because he led a life detached from her and from the world around him. He agrees to marry a girl with whom he thoroughly enjoys having sex and spending time, but whom he admits (to her face) that he does not love. He kills the Arab because the oppressive heat and light from the sun made him behave irrationally. He alienates the examining magistrate when he admits that he does not believe in God, and reduces the prison chaplain to tears when he shouts that God cannot help him or anyone else, because everyone is doomed to the same fate. He is not sorry for what he has done, and he sees the death sentence he receives (as a result of his callous personality, not of his murdering the Arab) as little more than an expedient to an inevitable outcome--his death, hence Meursault's assertion that "one life is as good as another," and Smith's lines "I can turn and walk away or I can fire the gun...Whatever I choose, it amounts to the same: absolutely nothing. I'm alive, I'm dead."
This song is about the ultimate meaninglessness of any action that one might take, insofar as its ability to change the outcome of one's life, and one's obligation to commit to and "own" the choices one has made, regardless of that fact. Whether or not Camus is a true existentialist notwithstanding (he did, after all, include the disturbing little robot woman to negatively portray complete detachment from the human race), Meursault is, and he has none of Kirkegaard's faith and none of Sartre's humanism, and he is the narrator of both "The Stranger" and "Killing an Arab."