Andrew's #8 - "We Used to Wait" by the Arcade Fire

We Used to Wait by the Arcade Fire

Andrew

I've labored over this spot on my list longer than any other. I know I love this song but is it in my top ten of the year? Why not "Suburban War", off the same album? That song is classic Arcade Fire: the pensive, nostalgic build followed by the moment where everything changes. The rhythm shifts and they go for broke, casting off the ambling first half and ending in the sort of theatrical explosion the band has become famous for.

Or why not "Helicopter" by Deerhunter: a spare, swirling, stunning meditation on the apocryphal downfall and ultimate demise of Russian sex-slave Dima, who was supposedly thrown out of a helicopter in the Russian wilderness when his mob owners tired of him.

I honestly love all of these songs but I'm going with "We Used to Wait". And I guess I'm still not entirely sure why. I do know that it was the first song I heard off The Suburbs and to me it exemplifies a new direction for the Arcade Fire, a band that delivers on everything it produces without ever repeating itself. There is a tautness and focus in the instrumentation of this song that I haven't heard in their earlier work; the metronomic drumming and piano melody help highlight the tension buried in Win Butler's lyrics. The song is simultaneously nostalgic and forward looking: Butler sings of the loss of the way things were, even as the song hurtles forward toward the future. The melody is muscular but facile; the lyrics evoke thoughts and fears that make a lot of sense to me. I don't know. I feel circular and hackneyed writing about it.

The Arcade Fire is a complicated band and my feelings about this song are complicated and hard to put my finger on. But the Arcade Fire never fails to disappoint and I think this is one of the best songs of 2011.


Seth

Oh boy. Okay, here we go...I always knew that I'd end up being the Mike Love of this blog, I just had no idea that it would come so soon. First things first: this makes you three for three on picking songs I haven't heard yet, although this time I have a better reason than laziness.

So I'll just go ahead and say it...I don't like the Arcade Fire. I was the only bespectacled rock nerd with an uncommitted haircut and a fondness for sweaters who didn't give a flying fuck about Funeral back in 2004. Something about the Arcade Fire just felt false and ersatz to me.

I felt somewhat vindicated in 2007 when many of my Funeral-loving friends slammed Neon Bible. I didn't hear a huge difference between the two records (I'll admit that "Wake Up" and
"Rebellion (Lies)" from Funeral did a little bit for me) and they both had, to me, the same problem: Win Butler's lyrics.

Every time I listen to the Arcade Fire, no matter how much I want to like the song, I just hear high school notebook poetry over swelling, meet-thy-maker sonics. I think Butler is right up there with Conor Oberst in the Pantheon of Angsty Lyricists. I've never heard anything in an Arcade Fire song that had any meaning for me at all. (I actually learned more about myself from a chance rehearing of "The Things We Do For Love" by 10cc tonight).

"We Used to Wait" leaves me in pretty much the same place as every other AF song I've heard. It's not that the music is bad--it's an excellent example of a certain type of indie rock executed perfectly. I've just always been a lyrics guy and Butler's don't stick for me. Plus, I've already got my Canadian Supergroup bases covered in the New Pornos, Wolf Parade, Broken Social Scene and Swan Lake.