A few days ago Arcade Fire announced that their new single “Lightning I, II” would be available on Thursday. That’s how it happened – and at the same time the Canadian band announced their new album WE.
listen and see “Lightning I, II” here in the stream:
Singer Win Butler has a lot to say about the new single, which was recorded with Radiohead producer in El Paso, Texas near the wall that borders Mexico. Read the statement he wrote for his band’s newsletter here:
“It was recorded with Nigel Godrich in El Paso, TX in the shadow of the Mexican border wall, which lay unfinished at the edge of the property.
It was peak Covid. El Paso was the epicenter in the US at that time, they were using prison inmates to move bodies to the overfull morgues, because the healthcare system was completely overwhelmed.
I’ll never forget finishing the take and walking straight to our outdoor communal space where we had screwed a television into a tree so we could watch election results outside, to see the news that Trump had lost the election.
The emotion in the vocal was inspired by the Haitian immigrants that were amassing on the US border, after boarding ships from Haiti and walking from as far as Brazil for a chance at freedom, only to be met with whips and dogs and officers on horseback.
I was lyrically inspired by the optimism I see in my child living in paradise “beneath a poison sky”.
But mostly WE wanted to play the song so fast and hard that you can’t breathe when it’s over… with the realization that you can’t win them all, even when you give it all.
A 4th place anthem.
And a reminder that “A day, a week, a month, a year, every second brings me here”.
The video directed by our friend (and fellow Montreal DIY scene alum) Emily Kai Bock expresses the feeling of the last two years: trying to make grand plans only to have the storms of life force you to improvise.
Sometimes bright flashes of
Lightning to guide our way, light up the sky, and burn it all
down so we can start again…
❤️
Win”
Arcade Fire presented their new single and another new song live Monday in New Orleans at a benefit concert benefiting Ukraine.
Arcade Fire’s sixth album, WE, is slated to feature seven songs split across two sides called “Me” and “We.” It says: “Side ‘I’ is about ‘the fear and loneliness of isolation’ and Side ‘WE’ is about ‘the joy and power of reconnection'”. The record is scheduled for release on May 6th. Their predecessor EVERYTHING NOW was released in 2017. In 2021 the band released the soundtrack to the film “Her”, which was released in cinemas in 2013.