The Arcade Fire

The Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Nicely distorted guitar. Simple drum fill. Choir-like "ohhs". Long tone key chords drop in and out. Strings play their role too in this existential rocker, rolling in and out of the "ohhs" and "ahhs".

This song is big. This song is lamenting. This song is waking up. This song could move faster, but it doesn't want to, and it doesn't need to.

"I guess we'll just have to adjust." This song is about changing and realizing that good is happening all around you, and to let it go (okay, that sounds kind of bohemian, but they are Canadian).

Musically, the songs kicks it up a notch with a key change in the middle signaling possible change happening. Then the song turns the corner. Just as the the song realizes its own mortality ("I can see where I'm going to be/when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand"), the drums turning to an uptempo bop feel signaling life after death. Or would that be death after death? Okay, so that sounds cheesy, but listening to the song, it sounds and feels right, and you can make your own decision about what the hell the lyrics mean.

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This song comes from the CD Funeral which will in all likelihood be placed in many critics' top 10 or top 83 releases of the year, including mine.

Rx Bandits

This is the only song I feel like listening to today. I need some hope.

Rx Bandits - Overcome (The Recapitulation)

We've had.
We've had enough of the politicians
We've had enough of these politician's wars
All we need right now is love
We've had enough of these military scoreboards
What we need right now is love.

(Turn it up)
The future is held in the hands who write the textbooks,
Ignorance is bred when falsified thinking is taught
To the youth instead of past mistakes and mind elevation,
Like the graves that manifest destiny has created.
So we can build our capitalist consumer based economy,
To build, market, and sell commodities we don't need.
But we are trained to believe like celebrity imaging
Well I'm here to take my feelings back and I hope that you will be with me

I can't wait for that day when I hear us all screaming.
I can't wait for that day when I hear us all singing together,

(Come on)
I can't wait for the day when I hear us all screaming,
HERE COMES THE REVOLUTION.
When every race color and creed of militant human beings stand up
With fists together for substance and true meaning
Because right now we got our feet stuck in cement
We're too caught up in a material status quo punishment
And one thing is for sure and that's the sun will always set,
Darling you can bet our moon is quite the opposite
So baby take a axe to your makeup kit
Set ablaze the billboards and their advertisements
Love with all your hearts and never forget
How good it feels to be alive and strive for your desire
Just cause you can't see your cage doesn't mean that you are free
When there are laws against nature but its ok for you to be
Addicted to over the counter prescriptions
And magazines dictate all our human relations

I'm not buying, no I'm not giving in
To a culture that objectifies all of our women

I'm not buying, no I'm not consuming
The apathetic dribble on the news media’s chin

I'm not buying, no I'm not giving in
The lies that are sold through textbooks to children

I'm not buying, no I'm not consuming
Cause the positive will always overcome the negative right

And we stay inside, its right outside, we stand in line
We all enjoy the fences to keep it at bay
But I'm not giving in.