#gvf2020

Well, I might as well put my English degree and philosophy minor to good use, so here we go. I’m going to break this down by verse.

Ultimately, I believe that the song is a criticism of this technological age we’re currently living in.

“Perfect child

Plugged in since the womb

Prophet of the dune

In this electric tomb

Man has made

An omnipresent force

Heading on a course

For interstellar shores”

Throwing it back to my childhood philosophy class— children are considered to be “perfect” and “pure”. That’s because children are too young to know how horrible the world actually is; they haven’t been tainted by its negativity. With that notion out of the way, we move on to the main theme of the song: machines. When Josh sings “plugged in since the womb” it could mean a multitude of things. However, I believe that it means children, and people in general, nowadays are too “plugged in”; as if they’re powered by machines and need them to live. The next line, “prophet of the dune” really stumped me for a while. (Even had to crack open old notes from school.) A prophet is regarded as an inspired teacher or someone who proclaims the will of God. I believe that “prophet of the dune” is sarcastic in nature. This is because, in literature or poetry, sand dunes symbolize instability (whether it be physical or mental), uncertainty, difficult times, or death. (Dunes are actually dangerous as hell.) So basically Josh is singing about a prophet of the aforementioned negativity. The rest of the verse isn’t all that difficult to pick apart. The prophet is trapped in an electric tomb. Tombs house dead things. Electrical death house. “Man has made/an omnipresent force/heading on a course/for interstellar shores” all means that man has made an all knowing, all seeing, and always present entity. The entity in this case being technology. And since interstellar space is defined as the point where the sun’s gravitational pull stops affecting its surroundings, it finally pulls the first verse together. This entity is just on its way to being disconnected and unaffected by things going on around it.

“God machine

Malfunctioned as it grew

And the circuits blew

Falling down on you

Now you’re free

Unplug from the source

No more underscores

Open up the doors”

Now, these boys are very spiritual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe in the Christian God or are even monotheistic (if you ask me they probably practice Witchcraft). ANYWAY. For these guys, “god” just means some higher form of power, something with a lot of control over what happens in the world. So what that means is that the technology that was created by this higher power or IS the higher power malfunctioned—it broke. The circuits blew, it exploded, and the debris and wreckage only fell down on the person/people who were using this technology. But, now the person/people that is/are being talked about are free because the technology was destroyed. They are being told to unplug from their source of power, negative power, and open up the door. There’s no “bottom line” that they need to follow anymore. The whole open the door thing just means opening up to new possibilities and ways of thinking.

“Feeling

Oh god, the feeling

We need some healing

We need some healing

God knows if you feel defeated

You have been cheated

You have retreated”

The chorus of this song really spoke to me, but also still confuses me. Once the person has been unplugged from their power source, they are no longer powered by negativity, they start to feel everything again. This person needs to heal from all of the negativity they were powered by and absorbing. The God in question is what confuses me about the chorus. I believe the “god” in question is the omnipresent technology that the song is criticizing. Our phones, computers, watches, etc. all have insight into our lives—as if they’re alive. They know everything about us. With that being said, when Josh sings “you have been cheated/you have retreated”, I think that means the technology has cheated us. It’s supposed to bring us joy and make us happy, but most of the time, every bit of negativity we experience comes from our technology. The news, social media... all they seem to do nowadays is talk about the horrible things going on in the world. We have been cheated. Lied to about the purpose it was supposed to serve. And we all need to heal from it, get away, unplug, and experience humanity again.

There is one more thing I’d like to talk about. The music. I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the music gives them feelings of anxiety, and I think that’s the point. It’s both beautiful but raises this feeling of uneasiness in us. That’s how we view technology. It makes us happy but most of the time is seems to upset us. Yet, we still engage in it. How are most of you reading this right now? On your phone? Laptop? We’re always connected. It’s time for us to leave it behind.

I say this because there’s clearly a whole group of people in our generation who are sick and tired of the music being produced right now. Sammy said it the best, “I don’t wanna listen to that shit.”

There are more and more people everyday finding Greta’s music, music from forty years ago, and realizing that the shit on the radio is exactly that; shit. Which means more and more of us are going to start making our own music, music that we like hearing.

Them: How much do you like Greta Van Fleet?