There are a lot of ways you an approach this, 'cause some of LP's lyrics are quite broad and open to interpretation that way. For instance, "No More Sorrow", on the surface, reads like your run-of-the-mill political protest song, but probably wasn't written with politics in mind at all. The only blatantly 'political' song that LP have put out, as far as I can see, is "Hands Held High". But, then, to a lesser extent, "Little Things" might count as well. The others are just down to how you decide to read the lyrics - "Wretches" seems to be a popular candidate here; it might reference Mario Savio and its lyrics might parallel his speech, but we have no idea what the song was really inspired by, if you want to get all definite about it.
I WAS being serious. For a song about war, Empty Spaces accomplishes a lot using subtext and context clues. The idea that the calm of peace (crickets) can be easily disturbed/destroyed with war (represented with cannon fire) for the mere purpose of establishing a political figure's rhetoric (Megaphone Brad) can still be seen today. Then it ends just as quickly.
I'm actually going to put my vote down for "The Radience" because of the outcome from what the Manhatten Project vaulted this world into. The end of WWII, The invention of the doomsday clock to gauge nuclear scares, and the Cold War, to name a few were all a result of splitting the atom. At that moment when the first successfull atomic bomb went off in 1945, Oppenheimer would go on to record the speech that would then go into "The Radience." The backing track is something else that I would like to point out. The beginning of the song has this almost imperial feeling arms race up until the point where Oppenheimer says "The destroyer of worlds" and there is a sudden stop that I interpret as the detonation of a nuclear weapon. (To me, it sounds like an explosion.) The silence is then broken in the outro of the song by the conclusion of the Oppenheimer speech "I suppose we all felt that, one way or another" paired with the sound of a baby's heartbeat, surrenderingly human. I feel this is powerful symbolisim because of the innocence of a child was not only destroyed by man, but also begs the question how could this world corrupt one so far as to not only develop, but implement weapons of mass destruction.
See the reason why I'm steering away from MTM is because I know he's probably heard MTM songs before and the most obvious ones such as HHH and NMS have been overused so many times. I actually considered TLTGYA but I decided against it. Really would like to look into ATS songs and possibly even incorporate a music video into my analysis. The music videos from this era have definitely been very emotional and metaphorical hmmm. I've never heard about the Enlightenment's Pursuit of Rational Interest. Might have to look into it because Wretches and Kings is definitely just as political as Blackout. Just that no one can seem to fully translate the metaphors behind either song. Yeah, but that would no longer be a song analysis since the "song" is practically just an analyzing of the speech instead. But that website is very cool. I will defintely look into that. Love reading these point of view interpretations. Yeah, that's what I've found to be so interesting about A Thousand Suns. There's that undertone on every song and that's what I love about it. I don't want to pick a song like HHH where it is so obvious that it's just not interesting to discuss or analyze. Songs like Blackout that no one has a clue to but is definitely political is what interests me. But blackout.....haha, is soooo hard to analyze just by myself. And I've even found political pieces in Waiting For The End, BITS, and Iridescent. Only song that I don't quite see any political pieces is Robot Boy. I'm trying to stay away from speeches but Radiance does seem very inviting. I like the idea of discussing even the instrumental aspect of their songs from ATS because of how they tried to incorporate imagery in their songs like in Fallout, BIT, Jornada Del Muerto or The Catalyst. Actually NMS was very much written as a political song. It was written to bash Bush's misworded speech when he called the Iraq War a crusade and discussed how it was successful. That's where the whole "thieves and hipocrites" piece works and why they say "it's time for you to be replaced". TLTGYA is also clearly about Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and Bush once again.
Zane, I really doubt your teacher has heard any song from Linkin Park for this "political song analysis project" or whatever. I wouldn't worry about that at all.
I actually believe there isn't as much political references in the bands lyrics then there seems to be. Like people say ATS is so politically driven when there is only a small amount of political references. But here's my main three (well off the top of my head. -Hands Held High Seriously, every word said here hits home and makes you think, "wow, we live in a fucked up place". -TLTGYA IMO this is a big fuck you to what was then the bush administration. Basically explaining how the gov turned their back on the people struggling with that natural disaster. "don't want to reach for me do you, l mean nothing too you. The little things give you away" basically sums it up. -Wretches and Kings Well besides the obvious political speech theres a few little things that scream out political reference. The line "the people up top push the people down low" is defintally power related. Here and there there's different lines with the same idea like "obay every word", "talk alot of shit and yet you don't know" etc. also the "front to the back" bit really reminds me of a union. So basically everyone uniting together and standing for the same thing "feel what I feel put em up real high"
Sorry, haha, What did you say? Hmmm...never really understood the front to the back part. But I like the idea of it being about a union. See the thing that ATS brings that makes it so hard to choose just one song is that ATS really needs to be talked and debated as a whole story.......which makes picking one song out of question. I've even debated doing this but figured that's too much. But I have thought about perhaps going from The Requiem through BITS and including the music video as well just because of how much I love the metaphors and representations in that video.
nope, not at all. Cwod has had students in the past that have analyzed MTMs. He personally talked to me about it. P.S. There's a tornado above mahhh house!
Here: Seems like you could use a little bit of my insight if you're doing The Requiem and Burning In The Skies. The most impactful sound to me in the two songs is the ultrasound heartbeat that ties the end of The Requiem to Burning In The Skies.