Where “The Suburbs” Are

A Review of The Suburbs, by Arcade Fire

Whether or not you enjoy the musical stylings of Arcade Fire on their album The Suburbs, you would be remiss if you did not admit to the poeticism of their lyrics. If you can’t get on board the Grammy train with these guys it might be because you find Win Butler’s stage presence terrifying or Régine Chassagne’s hurdy-gurdy playing a tad pretentious. Or maybe their music is more of a challenge than you’re accustomed to taking on. Never fear. Just don’t look at them, if you find them weird and terrifying. Close your eyes and listen, then close your ears and let me break it down for you.

Or, you may not belong here after all, in which case head on over to the Who Is Arcade Fire tumblr.

The Arcade Fire, managing to cram the maximum quota of indie posturing allowed by Québécois law into one photograph

Their previous album, Neon Bible, takes its title (but no shared elements) from the wonderful short novel of the same name by a then 16-year-old John Kennedy Toole, who would go on to write A Confederacy of Dunces. Incidentally, Toole also went on to commit suicide at the age of 31, so jot him down on your list of under-appreciated authors who killed themselves. Neon Bible is one of those albums that never gets old no matter how many times you listen to it, and like The Suburbs after it, it’s a feast of rich themes and contemplative indie rock ballads.

The Suburbs presents as a more unified album than its predecessor, and approached as a single oeuvre, is more enjoyable. There are some negatives; where it makes gains in performance and cohesion, it manages to fall somewhat behind in imagery and lyricism. And at a certain point the idea at the center of this long 16-track album has been tendered so many times that it becomes repetitive. But what are these suburbs that they sing of?

Contrary to the obvious interpretation, I don’t believe they’re just actual suburbs. The recurring themes in this album are aging, childhood and generations, war, suburban sprawl, and the night. And throughout, Butler dangles references to hand-written letters as our first clue to something more:

The summer that I broke my arm
I waited for your letter
I have no feeling for you now
Now that I know you better

I wish that I could have loved you then
Before our age was through
-”City With No Children”

I used to write letters, I used to sign my name
I used to sleep at night
Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain

But by the time we met
By the time we met the times had already changed
-”We Used to Wait”

When I first listened to it, I had the immediate impression that this whole album was about a man growing up in the first generation that experienced the onset of networked technology and the loss of intimacy and self that he experienced because of it. He remembers the excitement that he felt as a young man waiting for the post, waiting for expressions of feeling from his lover. He was unafraid to reciprocate, as vulnerable as it made him feel. However, as I began to pay more attention to the songs “Deep Blue,” “Flatland,” “Suburban War,” “Modern Man” and “The Suburbs” I became increasingly certain that the “suburbs” represent not only the place where the children of this album grew up, but also a metaphor for the maturity that we all inevitably face. Cyclically, we are born and nourished in the suburbs by our parents, we rail against them in our youth, and – inevitably – return.

The “city” glowing attractively in the “darkness” of this album is youth. “Light” is the onset of maturity. The mentions of “war” connote an inner rage against the end of childhood freedom and impulses, and the battle between those who mature and those who do not (or refuse to do so gracefully). The “letter” holds the feelings our aging protagonist yearns to express for the girl he wants to keep loving, but she has grown apart, clinging to the night and the blissful darkness of childhood:

They heard me singing and they told me to stop,
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock,
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose,
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface.
Cause on the surface the city lights shine,
They’re calling at me, ‘come and find your kind.’

Sometimes I wonder if the world’s so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl
-”Mountains Upon Mountains”

He responds to her in kind as he swallows his pride and trudges past her into adulthood (the suburbs):

We watched the end of the century
Compressed on a tiny screen
A dead star collapsing and we could see
That something was ending
Are you through pretending
We saw its signs in the suburbs
-”Deep Blue”

Let’s take a drive
Through the sprawl
Through these towns they built to change
Then you said, the emotions are dead
It’s no wonder that you feel so strange
-”Flatland”

Businessmen drink my blood
Like the kids in art school said they would
And I guess I’ll just begin again
You say can we still be friends

If I was scared, I would
And if I was bored, you know I would
And if I was yours, but I’m not
-”Ready to Start”

This town’s so strange
They built it to change
And while we’re sleeping all the streets, they rearrange

And my old friends, we were so different then
Before your war against the suburbs began
-”Suburban War”

In a message to his parents’ generation, he sings as a newcomer to adulthood who still feels the need for the security they once provided. Now he is in the “half light” – that is to say, nearly resigned to his aged self:

You told us that
We were too young
Now that night’s closing in
And in the half light
We run
Lock us up safe
And hide the key
But the night tears us loose
And in the half light
We’re free
-”Half Light”

The loveliest and most passionate song on this album is the eponymous “The Suburbs.” An elegy for the hometowns and experiences of our youth from one who has returned to them as a grown man, it strengthens and ties all the bonds of apprehension, the fears of aging, the loss of the ability to see the simple magnificence of the world that we all possessed as children:

You always seemed so sure
That one day we’d be fighting
In a suburban war
Your part of town against mine
I saw you standing on the opposite shore
But by the time the first bombs fell
We were already bored..

In my dreams we’re still screamin’ and runnin’ through the yard
And all of the walls that they built in the seventies finally fall…

I’m movin’ past the feeling
Sometimes I can’t believe it
I’m movin’ past the feeling and into the night

And in possibly the most honest and bare expression of all, he says:

So can you understand
Why I want a daughter while I’m still young?
I wanna hold her hand
And show her some beauty
Before this damage is done

But if it’s too much to ask, it’s too much to ask
Then send me a son.
-”The Suburbs”

Resigned to his fresh bitterness, he calls out for a daughter, for a child who, perhaps like the lover with whom he can no longer connect, could – at least for a while – freely and simply appreciate the world as he no longer can, in the sprawling towns that no longer mean anything to him.

It took me more than a few listens to appreciate the depth of this music. I enjoyed the challenge it presented, but it became too tiresome and exhausting to enjoy it as music. Only when I stripped away the sound did I find meaning in this art.

Was it worth it? Yes. But I’ll probably listen to a few hours of Daft Punk and lie in the recovery position for a while to get my wind back. Any other recommendations? Is it finally time for me to hear a Lady Gaga song?