Intervention

I know that someone already wrote about music because music is a form of popular culture that is often influenced by war, but "Intervention" by Arcade Fire is a much more abstract song that doesn't directly deal with the Iraq war or President Bush. However, I think that the abstract lyrics can be interpreted as dealing with these subjects indirectly because the Arcade Fire are slightly better lyricists than Pink.

First of all, one of the definitions of the title, "Intervention," is "to interfere, usually through force or threat of force, in the affairs of another nation" (American Heritage Dictionary - dictionary.com). That is precisely what we are doing in Iraq. It can also be interpreted as an intervention for our country, to steer it in the right direction because it has gone astray.

The following lyrics that I am going to analyze are selected lyrics from the song, not all the lyrics.

"The king's taken back the throne"
--> Bush is reelected.

"No place to hide
You were fighting as a soldier on their side
You're still a soldier in your mind
Though nothing's on the line"
--> This could have two meanings. The first is that soldiers fighting in the war have no place to hide, and since they are soldiers, they fight, even though they are fighting in a war with no purpose. The second meaning is that soldiers who are coming home from the war have nowhere to go and a lot have mental problems. They may think that they are still fighting in the war, but they're not.

"You say it's money that we need
As if we were only mouths to feed
I know no matter what you say
There are some debts you'll never pay"
--> The "you" in this passage is President Bush. It is referring to raising money for the war, and saying that money is not the answer because soldiers are human beings, not just mouths who need food. "There are some debts you'll never pay" is referring to all the soldiers and Iraqis who died in the war and saying that money can never repay those debts.

"Working for the church
While your family dies"
--> This one's a bit of a stretch, but I'm not saying that this song is all about war. However, I think that this can be interpreted as Bush's family being his country, and "working for the church" meaning Bush is committed to Christianity, all while soldiers are dying overseas.

"Hear the soldier groan, 'We'll go at it alone'"
--> America is fighting alone.

"I can taste the fear
Lift me up and take me out of here
Don't want to fight, don't want to die
Just want to hear you cry"
--> Soldiers are disillusioned with the war and want to (literally) be lifted up (in a plane) and taken out of Iraq. The last line could be referring to children that the soldiers may have left behind, and all they want to do is just be with them.

"Who's going to throw the very first stone?"
--> Biblical allusion that means that no one is without sin, even America.

"Oh! Who's going to reset the bone?
Walking with your head in a sling"
--> Soldiers come back to the US, often injured, and the military doesn't take care of them.

"And when you finally disappear
We'll just say you were never here"
--> Even though soldiers die, one never knows how the administration and the history books are going to spin this in the future. A soldier can die, when officially, he was never even there.

Some may argue that this song is not about Iraq at all, but is rather about religion or just a general song of hopelessness and disillusionment, and they may have good points because of how vague and open to interpretation the lyrics are. However, my theory is backed up by the facts that the Arcade Fire recently played two free Obama rally concerts before the Ohio primaries, and I read somewhere that before playing this song at one of their concerts, Win Butler, the lead singer, introduced it by saying something along the lines of "This song is about a former governor of Texas and uhh...well f*** him!"

By the way, this is an amazing song, and I still get chills every time I listen to it, so I highly recommend it.