Minimalist start with chopped-off, di-dah-diddy orchestral string chords which could, for me, have accompanied the song throughout. Instead the texture widens into pulsing guitar-ish sounds. Five solemn youths bemoan lost love in constrained but specific on-the-beat lyrics:
Praying won’t do it.
Hating won’t do it.
Drinking won’t do it.
Fighting won’t knock you
the verse ending with four soft grace notes:
out of my head.
The refrain being:
How do you get up from an all-time low?
And how about:
I’m in pieces,
Seems like peace is,
The only thing I’ll never know.
OS also says check out Manic Street Preachers commemorating the International Brigade in the Spanish civil war: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. MSP are “leftist anarchist” a coded phrase for “inadequate vocalist”. Twangy guitar gets more and more twangy (and noisy) and I look up the lyrics elsewhere. Impeccable sentiments; scrapbook video evokes terrible conflict that never ended. First verse says the obvious:
The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists
But a later verse complicates things
Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain
Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent
Suggesting the coda to “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance” is “Be prepared to act.” As with Assad’s Syria at this very moment.
The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists
But a later verse complicates things
Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young and being so vain
Holes in your head today
But I'm a pacifist
I've walked La Ramblas
But not with real intent
Suggesting the coda to “The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance” is “Be prepared to act.” As with Assad’s Syria at this very moment.