In the back seat
All the reviews I’ve read of Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” have had a kinda trite review of the last (stunning) album track, “In the back seat“. They’ve said things like, “it’s about remembering childhood and riding in the back seat” , and, “it’s a lovely song about being a child”.
It’s a song about growing up. It’s a song about the moment you think of youself as an adult. It’s a song about family.
I think you grow up, in a family, when someone dies. A parent, a grandparent. Someone who looked after you, someone you looked up to. Someone who drove while you could sit in the back seat, watching.
And you learn by watching them. You learn to drive, you learn to live, by watching them. And it’s frightening when they’re no longer there to drive you.
That’s what this song is about.
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I’ve just finished reading “The time-traveller’s wife”. It’s surely a sign that, somewhere, you have a soul when a book can still move you to tears?
July 15th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
I love love love both that album and that book. I was given the book for Xmas and basically no one saw me until it was almost the New Year! Absolutely fantastic.
July 15th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Deb and I both love that album. It would be certainly be in the top five I’ve heard over the past couple years.
And yeah, I was the same about the book - reading it every chance I had over the past week. It’s a bittersweet feeling to do that, as you can’t not read it, but every page read brings you closer to having no more to read!