Voici la seconde tranche de chansons de l’album The Suburbs,  dédiée aux fans finis d’Arcade Fire… et aussi aux sceptiques qui sont intrigués par le phénomène montréalais.

La source des textes est sur le site SongMeanings.

5. Empty Room

À mon sens la meilleure pièce rock de cet album. Le staccato typique des violons arrangés par Owen Pallett ouvre les vannes d’une chanson très puissante, une des plus proches de l’Arcade Fire singulier qu’on aime tant applaudir .

I’m so tired of learning to talk
Building fences on the wall
In this state, I shall not remain

I don’t want to go, but if I die young
Fill my empty room with the sun
Fill my empty room with the sun

This Doesn’t matter like it did before
This doesn’t matter much anymore

Change my mind or help me to try
Im afraid and I’m not satisfied
In this state I shall not remain

I don’t want to go, but if I die young
Fill my empty room with the sun
Fill my empty room with the sun

This doesn’t matter like it did before
This doesn’t matter much anymore
This doesn’t matter like it did before
This doesn’t matter much anymore

Daylight is not the same
When your stabbing at the stars
In your eyes, and bleeding
Is what you see

This doesn’t matter like it did before
This doesn’t matter much anymore
This doesn’t matter like it did before
This doesn’t matter much anymore

This doesn’t matter much anymore

6. City With No Children

Très convenue pour ne pas dire traditionnelle malgré les petits ornements en toile de fond, cette chanson se décline sur un tempo moyen. Les riffs de guitares, le chrorus, la réalisation auraient pu être mis en oeuvre il y a un quart de siècle et plus encore.

The summer that I broke my arm
I waited for your letter
I have no feeling for you now
Now that I know you better

I wish that I could have loved you then
Before our age was through
And before a world war does with us
Whatever it will do

Dreamt I drove home to Houston
On a highway that was underground
There was no light that we could see
As we listened to the sound of the engine failing

I feel like I’ve been living in
A city with no children in it
A garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside
Of a private prison

You never trust a millionaire
Quoting the sermon on the mount
I used to think I was not like them
But I’m beginning to have my doubts
My doubts about it

When you’re hiding underground
The rain can’t get you wet
Do you think your righteousness
Can pay the interest on your debt?
I have my doubts about it

I feel like I’ve been living in
A city with no children in it
A garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside
Of a private prison

I feel like I’ve been living in
A city with no children in it
A garden left for ruin by and by
As I hide inside
Of my private prison

7. Half Light I

Encore là, cette ballade rock ne pourrait être plus référentielle. Les violons y sont soyeux, élégants, néclassiques comme on en fait usage sur les meilleures chansons pop depuis les années 60.

You told us that
We were too young
Now that night’s closing in
And in the half light
We run

Lock us up safe
And hide the key
But the night tears us loose
And in the half light
We’re free

Strange how the half light
Can make a place new
You can’t recognize me
And I can’t recognize you

We run through the streets
That we know so well
And the houses hide so much
We’re in the half light
None of us can tell
They hide the ocean in a shell

The ocean in a shell

Our heads are just houses
Without enough windows
They say you hear human voices
But they only echo

They only echo
[They only echo
Only Echo

8. Half  Light II

L’enrobage presque électro-pop de cette chanson rock , à laquelle on confère un tissage de cordes haut perchées, me semble aussi classique. Cela étant, en voici une autre fort bien construite, nettement au-dessus de la moyenne malgré son conservatisme relatif.

Now that San Francisco’s gone
I guess I’ll just pack it up
Wanna wash away my sins
In the presence of my friends

You and I, we head back east
To find a town where we can live
Even in the half light
We can see that something’s gotta give

When we watched the markets crash
The promises we made were torn
And my parents sent for me
From the west where I was born

Some people say
We’ve already lost
But they’re afraid to pay the cost
For what we’ve lost
Pay the cost for what we’ve lost

Now that you have left me here
I will never raise my voice
All the diamonds you have here
In this home which has no life

Oh, this city’s changed so much
Since I was a little child
Pray that God won’t live to see
The death of everything that’s wild

Though we knew this day would come
Still it took us by surprise
In this town where I was born
I now see through a dead man’s eyes

One day they will see it’s long gone.