Hazey☆

Muse songs are heavily about people taking on the world. There’s a load of optimism in them; it’s something Matt said he can’t help: he’s an optimistic person. People face gigantic challenges, and together they overcome or go down fighting, while carving out little victories for themselves. Muse songs are often in first-person perspective. Lots of ‘I’, ‘we’, there are ‘us’es and ‘them’s in Muse songs. They will not force us. We must run. You and I must fight to survive. I’m drifting away from you. Together we’re invincible. They’ve got us locked into their sights, soon they’ll control what’s left inside. (More on the ‘control’ thing? See my last post.)

This album deviates from that. Obviously Matt is the narrator in a lot of the songs, and there is a subject addressed in them: his estranged partner. There IS a ‘you’ on this album. In fact, songs like ‘The Sickness In You & I’ feature it so importantly, it’s the title of the song.

But the album is so much more about the ‘I’ himself, the mentions of 'you' are almost incidental. It’s definitely a more reflective album. Matt does not have a team on this album; often he’s left cold and alone. Nightshift is the only real song where I see he is narratively in the same space as the ‘you’ - he’s reminiscing on being in the club with his wife. Other songs where the ‘you’ is a central character, like Be With You or Sickness, both seem to be after the fact isolated reflections of a man trying to reach out and save the person the song is about, but he can’t reach them, or they aren’t on the same wavelength anymore (‘I’m craving your touch will save me, no, no, no’) and his thoughts must turn to starting anew on his own (‘I feel my life has just begun’).

Other than that? Matt’s on his own. Cryogen. Hexagons. She left me running. She will ghostwrite my obsessions. This girl is nitrogen. ‘This girl’ is not a combination I think has ever occurred in a Muse lyric—despite how common it otherwise is in rock and pop music. Not in Muse’s world. Also aside, I think ‘she will ghostwrite my obsessions’ is hands down the best lyric on this entire album. It’s SO true about the way the people you are around will continue to have an impact on the way you see and interact with the world long after they’re gone. Great work Matt.