Seems like people have more or less covered the technical aspects of the metaphor at the center of this song, but there's been less discussion about the thrust of the metaphor itself.
That shows itself in the song's motivating question: "What were you doing for those eight and a half minutes?" In other words, what really drives you when you strip away everything superficial and transient? (That stripping away is accomplished in an extreme and evocative fashion here, which understandably diverts attention from the message.)
The song presents the question both on the collective and the individual level. The narrator observes things like the lack of looting, but also tempers that observation by the fact that potential looters might be deterred by the cold. You can hear him wrestling with the question of how the human race is going to behave in the face of existential crisis. Is it fundamentally self-destructive or can it muster the fortitude to "get it right" while staring down extinction?
We also get the individual question: when the chips are down, how are you going to react? Is your impulse to try to get in your spiteful parting shots on the people around you, or do you square yourself with your conscience by attempting to right any wrongs you've committed against them?
It's a song that struggles with the contradiction of the human impulse for great empathy and altruism along side it's equally capacious selfish side. It wonders, ultimately, which side wins out, both within individuals, and within society writ large.
Seems like people have more or less covered the technical aspects of the metaphor at the center of this song, but there's been less discussion about the thrust of the metaphor itself.
That shows itself in the song's motivating question: "What were you doing for those eight and a half minutes?" In other words, what really drives you when you strip away everything superficial and transient? (That stripping away is accomplished in an extreme and evocative fashion here, which understandably diverts attention from the message.)
The song presents the question both on the collective and the individual level. The narrator observes things like the lack of looting, but also tempers that observation by the fact that potential looters might be deterred by the cold. You can hear him wrestling with the question of how the human race is going to behave in the face of existential crisis. Is it fundamentally self-destructive or can it muster the fortitude to "get it right" while staring down extinction?
We also get the individual question: when the chips are down, how are you going to react? Is your impulse to try to get in your spiteful parting shots on the people around you, or do you square yourself with your conscience by attempting to right any wrongs you've committed against them?
It's a song that struggles with the contradiction of the human impulse for great empathy and altruism along side it's equally capacious selfish side. It wonders, ultimately, which side wins out, both within individuals, and within society writ large.