We’re still on the road on Song of the Day, but today with a single from the Canadian band’s second album, Neon Bible of 2007, the follow-up to 2004’s acclaimed Funeral, and one in which travel is as much a state of mind. Building up a restless, paranoid energy, the song is based on singer Win Butler’s childhood nightmares of somebody, or something “coming to take me away”. In his imagination he crosses rivers and mountains and is always on the move, urging for the car to be ready at all times. The song is alternatively tltled Keep The Car Running/Broken Window, as the second phrase was a B-side on the single. But real power of this in the momentum the song builds, with a huge sound and energy, particular with the strings, and Butler's high voice, building to the chorus unison of “keep the car running”.
Every night my dream's the same
Same old city with a different name
They're not coming to take me away
I don't know why, but I know I can't stay
There's a weight that's pressing down
Late at night you can hear the sound
Even the noise you make when you sleep
Can't swim across a river so deep
They know my name because I told it to them
But they don't know where, and they don't know when
It's coming … keep the car running.
Arcade Fire, very much a sibling-bonded folk-based acoustic band at its roots, with guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, synthesiser, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin, and hurdy-gurdy. But by the second album, they quickly became one of the biggest acts in the world by the sheer power and enthusiasm of their delivery, echoing the feel and sound of Bruce Springsteen concert, springing forever forwards to the next destination with a strange mixture of joy and despair.
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