I need the darkness someone please cut the lights
That is me when I am on my bed and lazy to switch off the lights. But jokes aside, I could never get tired listening to this masterpiece even after hearing it for so many years. It has been over a decade since indie rock band Arcade Fire released their single Sprawl ii and listening to it never gets old. Instead, I get energised by it. The lyrics describe a rather dull, drained and repetitive life in the great suburbs yet its music sounds hopeful.
They heard me singing and they told me to stop
Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock
I had a very hard time comprehending what sprawl is when I did EC3381 Urban Economics and it was only after I Googled images of sprawl did I really gain a better understanding. From an economist point of view, the rapid and unrestricted growth in low residential density buildings can create environmental impacts largely due to the need to drive a car to get to places. But it was through Arcade Fire did I also realise that the life in a sprawl is dull and repetitive. Work, eat, sleep and repeat that for 5 days straight (I’m suddenly reminded of the LOOP purposes in programming…).
These days, my life, I feel it has no purpose
But late at night the feelings swim to the surface
'Cause on the suburbs the city lights shine
They're calling at me, come and find your kind
The suburb lacks and limits one’s creativity to the extent that you can only be yourself when the city lights are “cut” off. Malls look similar not just on the outside, but on the inside, selling clothes, groceries and food for the exact same target market. And to take it literally, the existence of these malls help promote the consumption of or create a sustained supply of mass-produced goods.
Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small
Can we ever get away from the sprawl
Living in the sprawl
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight
I particularly liked the use of ‘mountains’ here. It kind of denotes the feeling that these problems become so big they are like metaphorical mountains and so problematic that they are never-ending. We all know that the world is a pretty massive space yet when in this song, we find that the issues arising from sprawl make us ponder truly if there is another place for us to escape to.
And let’s not forget the music video but first, kudos to the editor from 3:34 onwards. You really did a splendid job at distinguishing Régine (the female singer) from the suburbanites. I love the concept of this video so much. The working adults mask themselves, follow others and repeat identical moves in a large parking lot, making identifying them a tad hard. It is rather ironic because despite having ample physical spaces, there is no room for individual creativity. And amidst this chaos we have Régine who, by the way looks fantastic in her dazzling and visually-striking dresses, lives in her own bubble, free from the monotonous lifestyle.
A decade later, this song still lives on. Is it a good or bad thing? I don’t know.
Cinematic Frame of Mind 