Once, when asked to describe his view of the world in eleven words or less, Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler responded simply that “Death Is Real.” The question at the heart of Funeral’s colossal penultimate track (and also, I would argue, at the heart of everything Arcade Fire has ever written) is a familiar one: If everything is meant to die—our bodies, our innocence, our love—how are we to live our lives?
Rising above the mocking shrieks of a complacent society (“Lies! Lies!”), Arcade Fire provides an inspired response: the only honorable answer to our desperate condition is rebellion. Rebellion, that is, against everything that makes us scared: the frightening myths of our parents (“People say that you’ll die/Faster than without water/But we know it’s just a lie/To scare your sons and scare your daughters”), the warped systems of morality that repress our ability to love one another (“Come on, hide your lovers/Underneath the covers/Hiding from your brothers/underneath the covers”), and even the tempting escapism of dreams (“Sleeping is giving in/No matter what the time is”). We will never cheat death, but perhaps if we abandon our comfortable lies and live sincere and fearless lives, we will be able to “lift our heavy eyelids” and stare it right in the face.
Win Butler’s relentless rebel, then, is not unlike the Camusian ideal: a smiling, sleep-deprived Sisyphus whose struggle to reach the mountain-top is so filling (and so danceable!) that his failure, though inevitable, is ultimately irrelevant.
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