Arcade Fire has recently released their fifth full-length cd Everything Now, and I think it may be their most fully realized effort since their first ground-breaking cd, Funeral. That is to say, it's a near-perfect offering, and has deepened in my appreciation with each listening. Moments of sheer frisson, with the hair-raising, eyes misting telling me there is something about this music that viscerally means something to me at this point in my life permeate this album. And, as always when any piece of art moves me in this way, I feel gratitude and want to share it with anyone willing to listen.
Win Butler, the brain behind the band, has a real deep understanding and appreciation of the "album format," and to varying degrees, every Arcade Fire release has been a "concept album." With Everything Now, this carries to the very formalist aspect of the song sequence. The album begins with a short "Intro" titled "Everying Now (Continued)" with the first thematic expression of the concept: "I'm in the black again. Not coming back again. We can just pretend we'll make it home again from Everything Now." It's a slow, draggy staccato rhythm over a bit of a drone-dirge. It ends with a female voice saying "Now" and the title track, "Everything Now" begins with it's big romantic melodic motif spelled out on the piano. The more I listen to the opening verse, the more I get the chills:
"Every inch of sky's got a star and every inch of skin's got a scar,
I guess that you've got Everything Now.
And every inch of space in your head is filled with the things that you read,
I guess that you've got Everything Now.
And every film that you've ever seen fills the spaces up in your dreams, that reminds me
of Everything Now."
Later, Butler sings: "Every inch of road's got a town,
and daddy how come you're not around"
and you begin to truly understand the vacuousness of having "Everything Now."
When the chant begins, "Everything Now.... Everything Now" he sings:
"Everything Now.
I can't live without.
I can't live without.
"Till every room in my house
is filled with shit I couldn't
live without.
I need it.
I can't live without.
Everything Now."
Whew! I don't know about you, but this hits home a bit closer than I'd like to admit.
After Refector's electro-disco, Everything Now, while holding still to some of that (especially in the Kraftwerk sounding riff of "Put Your Money On Me") there's a strong white-soul-funk reminiscent of David Bowie's "Thin White Duke" phase, but to my ears, sounding more rocky and less artificially synthetic. This funk first rears its head on "Sounds of Life," with the repeating refrain:
"Looking for signs of life.
Looking for signs of life every night,
but there's no sign of life.
So we do it again."
"Creature Comfort" always raises the goosebumps and brings on the wet eyes. I know it's me. Fuck it. Wim and Regine trade lines:
"Some boys hate themselves, spend their lives resenting their fathers.
Some girls hate their bodies, stand in the mirror and
wait for the feedback, saying,
"God, make me famous, if you can't
just make it painless." Just make it painless."
And the sheer impossibility of making it painless rips into my heartmind. It's the first noble truth: duhkha.
And:
"It goes on and on, I don't know what I want,
on and on, I don't know if I want it.
On and on, I don't know what I want,
on and on, I don't know if I want it."
Truly!
"Peter Pan" alternates between dreams where the beloved is dying or living. It's an expression of anxiety about what age brings:
"Be my Wendy, I'll be your Peter Pan.
Come on baby, ain't got no plans.
Boys and girls got all the answers,
men and women keep growing their cancer..."
Butler ends asking, "How can I live with so much love?"
"Chemistry" plays with the age-old notion that whatever makes any relationship "work" it's something beyond mere personality that boils down to sheer chemistry -- which if we could only remember, comes down to formulae! There's a playfulness when he sings (with tongue in cheek?): "Chemistry, you know me. But how could you know me? I feel like you know me. Right." Is this not the fundamental issue around NRE (New Relationship Energy)?
Then comes a pounding rocker just over one minute long called "Infinite Content." Butler chants:
"Infinite Content. Infinite Content.
We're infinitely content.
All your money is already spent on it.
All your money is already spend on
Infinite Content."
This formally ends "Side One" coming as the 7th song on the album followed by a folk-country version of "Infinite Content" beginning side two. There are 13 songs on the album and the 7th and 8th songs are different versions of the same song. "Electric Blue" is another funk-rock tune. Regine sings:
"Summer's gone and so are you.
See the sky electrocute a thousand boys that look like you.
Cover my eyes, Electric Blue."
The funk continues with the heavy bass line that introduces "Good God Damn," which plays with the phrase "Good God damn" by asking "But maybe there's a good god, damn,"
"Put Your Money On Me" has that Kraftwerk sounding ostinato pattern while Butler sings:
"Put Your Money On Me,
Or tuck me into bed and wake me when I'm dead.
I know that you gotta be free,
but I'm never gonna let it go."
The penultimate song asserts "We Don't Deserve Love" and Butler sings: "If you can't see the forest for the trees, just burn it all down, and bring the ashes to me." Mommy and daddy make their appearance again (they turn up periodically in many Arcade Fire songs gong back to Funeral, when he sings: "Hear your mother screaming, hear your daddy shout. You try to figure it out, you never figure it out" and what mama is screaming is "You don't deserve love."
And then we come to the final cut and it's the opening cut again! "I'm in the black again. Not coming back again. We can just pretend we'll make it home again, from Everything Now."
This time, a lush string arrangement builds in a crescendo that ends abruptly, as if the tape broke. When listened to on a car cd player, there is no gap between the end of this and the beginning of the first cut and you begin to related to the whole album as a helix; or a closed loop like a mobius strip. It's its own world. It is Everything Now!
