The trouble with listening to Muse's discography front to back again is you gain new hindsight, and suddenly you're looking back at songs like Escape and being punched in the gut.
Before there was The Wow! Signal, there was Drones, Matt's heartbreak and separation album. Before Drones, there was The 2nd Law, the love and life falling apart album. And before there were those, there was Escape.
Escape. The original song written from the point of view of the child of divorce (Matt has talked about it in the past). The forgotten child in the middle, finding himself as the 'unlovable' collateral damage of the relationship that couldn't be saved. Raging against having the ideal childhood snatched away from him: his family broken up and his own personal guilt around it, being sent away to Teignmouth, not having enough money, not seeing his parents; being teenaged and scared and raging against his parents and wishing he could reverse this and put his life back together: "why can't you just love her?/Why be such a monster?" Ultimately, he concludes that him and his dad are the same, and that he shares the blame ("But I'll still take all the blame/Because you and me are both one and the same/And it's driving me mad").
And it brings me forward in time to 2012-13, about Kate Hudson sharing in a 2021 interview that Matt said to her that he wanted their son to feel like he was gaining rather than losing family from their split. Matt knew what it like being a child of divorce, feeling the love, care and attention of a parent slip away, of feeling neglected and lost and not wanting to put his own children through that.
And it brings me to 2026 and The Wow! Signal: Matt is now on the other side of Escape. Matt could well be the dad character of Escape. And somehow, the feelings that remain are eerily similar to his childhood. Divorce still tore his family apart - everything he'd built his life around, everything he'd dreamed of, gone. Just like young Matt. He reached out, and his life was torn apart; how could he start again? On the other side of the fence too, Matt finds, "love can drift away". It's as devastating in his forties as at fourteen.
And even through the hurt, he has the cognisance of the teenager that saw and feared this happening: "I carry half the blame". And then I just have to turn the album off and go stare at the stars and get really emotional for a bit. The themes running through this man's whole life...
Thank you OP for your analysis. Actually got chills because I love Escape. I think about this song daily. Itâs easily my favorite showbiz song and one of my overall favorite songs because of just the sheer rawness and emotion in it âIâll take back all the things that I said / I didnât realize I was talking to living deadâ are up there for favorite lyrics and just the raw delivery on those lines??? Aaajskskdhsjssjshhs. And of course Iâve been loving Space Debris for similar reasons. Absolutely obsessed with the sad resolve and clear internal torment behind those lyrics. And the space imagery on top of it all is so good
(This is my first reblog/post/anything hi museblr Iâm officially here after lurking for months yâall have been really fun and I love reading your analyses and appreciate the archives of photos and gifs to use for art ref đ«¶đœ)
