Sam’s Soundtracks is dedicated to the discovery and love of music. This blog is designed to bring songs from all genres and and time periods onto Braves’ music radars. These songs may be the hottest new tracks, timeless classics, or songs that just need to be heard. So open your ears and enjoy.
“Wake Up” comes from Arcade Fire’s 2004 stunningly beautiful debut, Funeral, named for the loss of relatives that four of the band members experienced surrounding the production of the album.
However, the listener should not be fooled by the title. Funeral is an album filled with unrivaled vibrancy and enchantment that contradicts every notion of death. Unless there is life in death, as the song may suggest.
“I can see where I am goin’ to be when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.” The man in the song knows his time is near, but he accepts this fact. Mortality is a major theme in the song, but hope is able to permeate the finality of death in the form of angelic harmonies, a soft guitar riff, and an elegant string section.
Win Butler, the band’s lead singer and frontman does not command anyone to wake up. Instead he pleads “Children wake up, hold your mistake up, before they turn the summer into dust.”
It is almost as if the man in the song knows that his time is near and wants the future generation to not make the same mistake he has: “But now that I’m older, my heart’s colder, and I can see that it’s a lie.” What was that mistake? What was a lie? These questions feed into the idea that death is a very uncertain thing, filled with unanswered questions.
There is even a little humor to lighten the heaviness of the emotion the song elicits. The last quarter of the song morphs into one with an upbeat tempo and finishes with the line, “I can see where I am goin, you better look out below!” When faced with certain death, the man laughs in the face of the reaper.
Music is art. It takes years to appreciate and a lifetime to master. For some, it is a safe haven in a hostile world. Music has the power to awaken people, bring them out of a long slumber. Music is beautiful, even in its most primitive state. Music is art. Arcade Fire knows this like no other.
The Hilights
Album Title: “Funeral”
Release date: 9/14/2004
Cost: $7.99
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars