Tag Archives: The Suburbs

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Song of the Day #1,701: ‘Month of May’ – Arcade Fire

suburbsTrack 10 on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, ‘Month of May,’ feels like a cigarette break from all of the moody foreboding of the rest of the album. Maybe not a cigarette, maybe a shot.

This is a pulsating punk tune that feels a bit out of place on the album, musically, though lyrically it hits on many of the same themes.

Win Butler writes about the city being hit from above and describes a violent wind that “blew the wires away.” He could be describing an actual storm but this also sounds like more fallout from that metaphoric suburban war he’s been describing.

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Song of the Day #1,700: ‘Suburban War’ – Arcade Fire

suburbsIt seems Arcade Fire was thinking in terms of sides when they sequenced The Suburbs.

Recall that the opening (and title) track kicks off with the lines “In the suburbs I, I learned to drive, and you told me we’d never survive. Grab your mother’s keys we’re leavin’.”

Now midway through this song, titled ‘Suburban War,’ we have “In the suburbs I, I learned to drive, and you told me we would never survive. So grab your mother’s keys we leave tonight.” We’ve looped back around to the starting point.

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Song of the Day #1,699: ‘Half Light II (No Celebration)’ – Arcade Fire

suburbs‘Half Light II (No Celebration)’ keeps us in the 80s, musically speaking, with a synth-bass concoction that sounds a lot like New Order.

But lyrically, the song jumps ahead in time. The kid who ran around his suburban neighborhood at dusk in ‘Half Life I’ has since left home for the east coast. But now he is invited back and finds that the town where he spent his youth has changed.

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Song of the Day #1,698: ‘Half Light I’ – Arcade Fire

suburbsAny concept album worth its salt has at least one song that is broken into parts. Just ask Pink Floyd.

Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs has a couple of examples. The first is ‘Half Light,’ part one (or I) of which is today’s SOTD.

This is the most atmospheric track on the album so far, drowned in ambient synth-strings that sit higher in the mix than the vocals. And Win Butler takes a back seat for most of the song, letting his backing vocalists carry the tune.

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Song of the Day #1,697: ‘City With No Children’ – Arcade Fire

suburbsI’m sure my one loyal reader — who is not a big fan of Arcade Fire — is groaning right now, but today begins week two of my song-by-song exploration of the band’s Grammy-winning album, The Suburbs.

Track six, ‘City With No Children,’ mines similar territory as the first five tracks (not surprisingly… this is a concept album, after all): nostalgia, regret, the soullessness of modern society.

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