Arcade Fire member Will Butler has teamed up with The Guardian to release a series of songs based on news stories, and this week-long plan is kicking off today (February 23) with "Clean Monday," which is inspired by Greece's financial crisis.
The song is a slinky new wave tune that mixes electronic grooves with organic-sounding piano and bass. Butler's urgent croons allude to financial difficulties and social disturbance, but he doesn't tackle the issue too bluntly, since it would be easy to listen to the track with no knowledge of what it was about. The lyrics about children and lost innocence, meanwhile, provide a thematic link to Butler's work with Arcade Fire.
Butler said this in statement:
I was reading The Guardian's live coverage of the forthcoming Greek proposals of how they're going to pay off their debts, when a little blurb popped up explaining that the Greek markets were closed today because it was "Clean Monday," the Greek Orthodox equivalent of Ash Wednesday. It was an amazing/hilarious (well, maybe mildly amusing) coincidence to me that the Greek ministers were scrambling and figuring out how to avoid strict austerity on the day that Lent starts.
Hear the song below.
The song is a slinky new wave tune that mixes electronic grooves with organic-sounding piano and bass. Butler's urgent croons allude to financial difficulties and social disturbance, but he doesn't tackle the issue too bluntly, since it would be easy to listen to the track with no knowledge of what it was about. The lyrics about children and lost innocence, meanwhile, provide a thematic link to Butler's work with Arcade Fire.
Butler said this in statement:
I was reading The Guardian's live coverage of the forthcoming Greek proposals of how they're going to pay off their debts, when a little blurb popped up explaining that the Greek markets were closed today because it was "Clean Monday," the Greek Orthodox equivalent of Ash Wednesday. It was an amazing/hilarious (well, maybe mildly amusing) coincidence to me that the Greek ministers were scrambling and figuring out how to avoid strict austerity on the day that Lent starts.
Hear the song below.