We’re in the home stretch of what has been an excruciating three weeks for Dana but, in my imagination at least, a fascinating exploration of a modern classic for scores of lurking readers.
‘Wasted Hours,’ the eleventh track on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, pretty much encapsulates the album’s theme. It describes adolescence as the “wasted hours before we know where to go and what to do.”
Win Butler nods to the previous track, repeating the lines about building the road before the town and driving around, this time getting more specific in describing “kids in the buses longing to be free.”
By the end of the song, he realizes that he has never really left that expectant state… he’s still the kid in the bus longing to be free. The wasted hours of suburban youth aren’t a prologue, they’re a dress rehearsal.
Spent the summers staring out the window
The wind it takes you where it wants to go
At first they built the road then they built the town
That’s why we’re still driving around and around
And all we see are kids in the buses longing to be free
Wasted hours before we knew
Where to go and what to do
Wasted hours that you make new
Turn into a life that we could live
Some cities make you lose your head
In this suburb stretched out thin and dead
What was that line you said?
Wishing you were anywhere but here
You watched the life you’re living disappear
and now I see, we’re still kids in the buses longing to be free
Wasted hours before we knew
Where to go and what to do
Wasted hours that you make new
Turn into a life that we could live
Meet Me In Montauk 
Excruciating is right! Another bland track from a clearly overhyped album. I hope this week goes fast!
I think you missed the boat on this one.
I can’t imagine you will be reaching for this album in 10 years, nor do I think you will consider it a classic in the way of a Graceland, Nebraska or even Joshua Tree.