Charlie Darwin Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Buck Fastard 

Cover art for Charlie Darwin lyrics by Low Anthem, The

It's a song about capitalism, or 'a system built to fail', and how futile our efforts are to escape from it.

The first verse relates to the hopes and dreams we all start out with in life.

The key verse is the second:

'Who could heed the words of Charlie Darwin Lords of war just profit from decay And trade the children's promise for the jingle The way we trade our hard earned time for pay'

This is the idea that we have gone past evolution now - we are self-sufficient - and we've replaced Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' with a decaying and corrupt system, led by 'Lords of war' who trade 'our children's promise' for the pursuit of money ('the jingle'). There are a few rich people at the top of the pile stopping most of us from ever fulfilling our hopes and dreams.

It's actually a very political song, albeit quite a cryptic one.

@Buck Fastard I think yours is the best answer to the meaning of the song. It's not about religion, as some here have posted. Charles Darwin was actually a Christian but back in the day his work was not accepted as being in line with those beliefs, just as Copernicus in his time. Darwin proved that everything is in continual evolution to best suit its changing surroundings, in order to survive. The lyrics are crying out about where that evolution has taken us, or where has the evolution gone. It seems that things have stopped evolving, and instead we are left...

@Buck Fastard Unfortunately, you are leading the pack here of folks (including this song's writers apparently) that view Capitalism as a 'system built to fail'. No socioeconomic system is executed perfectly as intended or designed, because it is administered by people, all of which are hopelessly flawed because we live in a fallen world. The system, however, that provides the greatest potential of success by the largest number of people is the one that allows competition and individual freedom. That would be a combination of Capitalism and an elected representational governance such as we have in the USA. That's why it...

My Opinion

Furthermore, quantifying the US as "the best country to have ever existed" is going to prove difficult, even with - if not especially with - capitalism as a quantifier. Also, it has nothing to do with the song. It won't change the song's meaning to inject your own personal economic and political philosophies into the comments.