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Let’s go for a drive and see the town tonight
There’s nothing to do but I don’t mind when I’m with you
This town’s so strange they built it to change
And while we sleep we know the streets get rearranged
With my old friends it was so different then
Before your war against the suburbs began
Before it began
Now the music divides us into tribes
You grew your hair so I grew mine
You said the past won’t rest
Until we jump the fence and leave it behind
With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car
The night’s so long
Yeah the night’s so long
I’ve been living in the shadows of your song
Been living in the shadows of your song
In the suburbs I, I learned to drive
And you told me we would never survive,
So grab your mother’s keys we leave tonight
But you started a war that we can’t win
They keep erasing all the streets we grew up in
Now the music divides us into tribes
You choose your side, I’ll choose my side
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends are staring through me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
They don’t know me now
All my old friends, wait…
There’s nothing to do but I don’t mind when I’m with you
This town’s so strange they built it to change
And while we sleep we know the streets get rearranged
With my old friends it was so different then
Before your war against the suburbs began
Before it began
Now the music divides us into tribes
You grew your hair so I grew mine
You said the past won’t rest
Until we jump the fence and leave it behind
With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car
The night’s so long
Yeah the night’s so long
I’ve been living in the shadows of your song
Been living in the shadows of your song
In the suburbs I, I learned to drive
And you told me we would never survive,
So grab your mother’s keys we leave tonight
But you started a war that we can’t win
They keep erasing all the streets we grew up in
Now the music divides us into tribes
You choose your side, I’ll choose my side
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends are staring through me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends they don’t know me now
They don’t know me now
All my old friends, wait…
Lyrics submitted by Fatzers
Track duration: 04:47
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And about the friends - they are childhood friends, the ones you said you would be friends forever with, but you grow up, and you lose touch. My friends and I all go to different high schools and we are too different now. We're growing apart. And this is what he means.
Now that he's growing older, he sees that the drive to escape the suburbs is gone, and the suburbs seems like a much nicer place to live than the large, impersonal cities preferred by young people.
I know exactly what he is talking about.
I grew up in the Suburbs and went through this same hell he went through... The whole album The Suburbs is all recollections of memories growing up there. We (the kids) always wanted out. We needed to leave. We wanted freedom. We didn't want to hear about the bills our parents had to pay, the dinner parties, the gossip, the jokes of various neighbors problems, the arguments between mom and dad, their complaints of not having the precious material object the neighbor had, and worst of all the false love they provided... I guess a lot of people who didn't live in the suburbs would assume its paradise and perfect, but little do they know it was filled with people who weren't real and afraid of truth. People ostracized if they weren't catholic and going to the same church. When your a kid you will believe anything your parents say, but as you grow older you start to think and wonder "What are they talking about? This is stupid. I don't agree or want any of this. I want out". I know for a fact the lead singer would know exactly what i'm talking about and how dysfunctional it was growing up there in the suburbs. Living in the suburbs was different then growing up anywhere else because everyone had to pretend like there life was perfect with no problems. All false, dysfunctional, and well coordinated to appear perfectly fine. After leaving home we start to recall memories of small fragments of good times we had; running through the sprinkler in the lawn during the summer, catching frogs down by the pond, staying up and talking with your older brothers and giggling, but the problem with that is we would start to think "Yeah, life was great! I only remember all those good times. Mom and Dad were so great, I was happy then.." completely forgetting all the pain, misery, drug use, lies we had to go through, and then going back home to the house we grew up only to be fooled by our own expectations- nothing has changed. All the painful memories come back and it starts to all make sense.
"Let’s go for a drive and see the town tonight
There’s nothing to do but I don’t mind when I’m with you
(anythings good as long as I am getting away from my family, and you my friend know exactly what I am talking about)
This town’s so strange they built it to change
And while we sleep we know the streets get rearranged
(its all so fake! nothing genuine or real exists here)
With my old friends it was so different then
(we would all sit and hang out and talk about all the crazy shit going on around us)
Before your war against the suburbs began
(internally speaking)
Before it began
Now the music divides us into tribes
You grew your hair so I grew mine
(the craziness of what was happening around us made us (the kids in the neighborhood) super close and when one kid would do something, we all would follow)
You said the past won’t rest
Until we jump the fence and leave it behind
(we are going to go crazy and stay miserable here and end up like all the adults if we don't ever leave this place)
With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
(parents losing corporate jobs not being able to pay for the house and the family having to disappear so suddenly, we as kids just left so clueless as to why they left)
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car
(nothings the same now. Where are you guys? I don't want to go through all this painful recollection without you guys. We went through everything together, remember?)
The night’s so long
Yeah the night’s so long
(laying in bed running through all the old memories that we had subconsciously stored away)
I’ve been living in the shadows of your song
Been living in the shadows of your song
This song stirs something in me that captures those themes all at once- longing for the past, the innocence of youth, experiencing things for the first time, and trying to find those things again by revisiting your hometown. But this song also presents the theme of a divide among those like me, and those that choose another way of life. When he says, "I've been living in the shadows of your song," I can't help but think of the stereotypes- Hawks and Doves, Reds and Blues, Religious and Self-thinkers, Consumers and Non-consumers, etc. For over a decade now, where I live, I have been living in the shadows of a crappy, over-produced, check-your-brain-at-the-door, new-country song.
I am not saying this is exactly AF's meaning, but the meaning I bring to the lyrics; I am an accepting, peaceful person who keeps an open mind towards others in most cases. However when I see examples of ignorance, oppression, arrogance and violence affecting or directed towards others, I think of the line, "I'll choose my side, you choose your side." And I hope that these uncompromising, ignorant and arrogant people will choose their side far away, and leave us alone to better the world, and each other.
I'd also add that the guitar riffs and effects, the buildup to the crescendo are second to none. When I listen to this song first thing in the morning, I am left with an impenetrable shell of positivity and confidence that I carry with me all day.
Unreal, inspired, divine song; a gift to all of us from Arcade Fire.
To me this song refutes that assumption... and does it beautifully.
Around the beginning of puberty a lot of people find that they suddenly don't know their old friends anymore and people generally tend to fork off on their own paths and become themselves, while it can be argued to an extent before the chemicals that puberty puts into the brain that children are all relatively similair and find it easier to get on, within reason.
This song adresses the part of growing up where people strive to form their own identity, where people start to become goths or chavs or skaters or whatever it might be, suddenly they might find themselves very different to their best friends.