For a song with such a provocative title, The Graceland Conspiracy gives us something decidedly dreamy, accessible, light, and lovely. But I guess that gets to the heart of what music, and indeed art, is all about…using one extreme to talk about another, making opposites attract, and finding joy in juxtaposition. And whilst the band might be capable of chaos, and some members certainly have been in the past, here they are ordered, innocent-sounding, and alt-poppish. (Or at least alt-alt poppish)
But read the lyrics, an almost stream-of-consciousness series of short statements, and you realize that the ‘We’ refers, perhaps, to humanity in its entirety, the ‘Chaos’ a shared universal life experience, and that such chaos can be beautiful and bountiful as easily as it is unexpected and sometimes upsetting.
And it is the delicacy of the music, the gentle piano, the chiming guitars, the simple beats and rising bass runs, Edelle McMahon’s heavenly vocal harmonies, the creschendoic brass that allows the song to end on a high, and the use of space and atmosphere that speaks volumes.
Once you understand what’s going on here, ‘We Are Chaos’ becomes a graceful hymn to the very nature of existence in all its singular, eclectic glory, a reminder that the world is wide and weird and wonderful and full of strange experiences and unexpected encounters and that these are exactly the things you should seek to embrace.
Such a simple and simply gorgeous song; such a profound message.
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