The Arcade Fire - Funeral

Genre rock Publisher Merge Records External Links The Arcade Fire Merge Records

We're raised by futile childhood dreams and are just now realizing it in a modest, post-adolescent self-reflection on how inaccessible we are to the embellished American dream. In our minds, we're still a disenfranchised youth, while our role models prescribe us with a medication for any ailment proving them apathetic to our real needs. Suffering and misery are all around us, we discredit the poor and denounce the rich. With our hearts as cold as the winter outside, we confine and alienate ourselves from all else.

Win Butler moved to Montreal and found himself at home in the numbing, frigid cold of Quebec's winters. With hopes of finding other musicians in the folk-ish, cultural center of Quebec, he found both musicians and love. Regine Chassagne and Win quickly found one another and are the songwriting force behind The Arcade Fire. Richard Parry, Tim Kingsbury, and Win's little brother Will all found themselves in the band as well. Perhaps they expected an escape from the tragedy of their lives by playing together; instead, the tragedy followed them. If you believe despair and suffering can lead to artistic greatness, then listen to their story.

Following Regine's grandmother's death in June, Regine and Win married in August and started recording in September. In March, Win and Will's grandfather Alvino Rey died; soon after, Richard Parry's Aunt Betsy died; and a month later, the band was signed to Merge Records and had completed their album. In an attempt to bring closure to their losses, they aptly titled the album, Funeral. It is richly inspired by sing-along folk, classical periods centuries old, and emotional music icons like that of The Smiths or The Cure.

The album opens with "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" which begins with the hum of a synth and a short, melodramatic piano line repeats while percussive guitars softly edge the song forward. Butler's vocals are like that of a storyteller, soft and gentle but vibrantly triumphant and even erratic in parts. "And if my parents are crying then I'll dig a tunnel from my window to yours...You climb out the chimney and meet me in the middle, the middle of town." Win elaborates on a story of a boy whose parents are locked in their room, grief-stricken and sobbing too much to notice him. The boy yells out to his girlfriend to meet him so that they can speak of childhood fantasies about growing up, something they can barely even conceive at their age. "...We let our hair grow old and forget all we used to know..."

The following song "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" follows the theme of community and family, but strangely compares an older brother to Laika, a dog that was sent into outer space without the intentions of retrieval, and who died. This dark comparison brings themes of suicide and domestic violence into the song. "Alexander, our older brother, set out for a great adventure...Our mother shoulda just named him Laika!“ Further on, “When daddy comes home, you always start a fight, so the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights." Alexander, like Laika, is asked to grow up and leave, for the sake of the community.
br> "Une Anne Sans Lumiere" is a slow, beautifully produced song which combines Butler's empowering yet accepting vocals with that of Regine's soft-spoken, innocent vocals in French. This slow song is followed by an upbeat anthem comprised of a standard pop beat, glockenspiel melodies, and an unforgiving driving guitar. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is a pivotal moment on the album as Butler declares "Ice has covered up my parents hands don't have any dreams don't have any plans...And the powers out in the heart of man, take it from your heart, put it in your hand." The song vocalizes the disenfranchisement of our dreams and our hearts, something we only realize upon self-reflection.

"Crown of Love," and "Wake Up" deal with guilt, sorrow, love, and redemption. "Crown of Love" speaks of a man who became apathetic towards his girlfriend, "They say it fades if you let it...If you still want me, please forgive me, because the spark is not within me.” "Wake Up" explains what went wrong in his life and why he's so apathetic towards existence. "Somethin' filled up my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry. But now that I'm older, my hearts colder, and I can see that it's a lie. If the children don't grow up, our bodies get bigger but out hearts get torn up." After years of being told not to cry, with parents telling us to grow up, it's just our bodies that have grown while our hearts simply become cold and unresponsive.

"Haiti" is a deeply emotional story about Chassagne's family's flee from Haiti‘s dictatorship under Duvalier. "Ma famille set me free. Throw my ashes into the sea. Guns can't kill what the soldier's can't see. In the forest we are hiding, unmarked graves where flowers grow." Chassagne and her family will never forget the reign of Duvalier, and the song is a sort of call for action to build an army and reclaim their land and redeem themselves, fulfilling the album's reoccurring theme of redemption.

"Rebellion" and "In the Backseat" are empowering self-reflections of survival and bring the album to rest; just as The Arcade Fire become at peace with the recent deaths in their families.

Funeral takes an optimistic look at the darkest hours of human life and instills a feeling of self-reliance. It crescendos from feelings of immense suffering and guilt to an apathetic, unsettling view of life. By listening to the band's own experiences, we embark on a journey throughout our own and by the end of it, it's not just The Arcade Fire who finally have closure, it's the listener as well.