Wake Up.

Arcade Fire - Wake Up

Something filled up
My heart with nothing
Someone told me not to cry

But now that I'm older
My heart's colder
And I can see that it's a lie

This part was so awesome in how it doesn't seem to make sense, at least not on the surface. He's older and his heart's colder (so well-put, really) but he realizes it's a lie - to not cry, that is. He realizes that there are things worth crying over, that it's a lie when people tell you to harden your heart and to bury things (which slowly eat you up, fact.) and to repress your emotions, and you slowly and inexorably become cold and unfeeling and emotionless. Don't believe them. Never never never never believe what they say. Never.

Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust

I think this is about how we shouldn't be afraid to make mistakes. To never let our fears govern us.

If the children don't grow up
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms
Turning every good thing to rust.

This part was just simply brilliant. The use of the simplest words here to paint pictures so breathtaking. What an amazing way to describe growing up - Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up - and I choose to think of the second part as a picture of people all over the world crying. Goosebumps.

I guess we'll just have to adjust

I thought this was such a sad statement to describe the world as it is, that sooner or later all of us are going to have to adjust, to this grown-up world of indifference and hurt. And because I think that this song is essentially about growing up and lost innocence, that adjusting is such a sad way to describe growing up. Ohwell.

With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going to be
When the reaper, he reaches and touches my hand

With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going

You better look out below!

I loved this part because of how childlike it is, what with the music and the lightning bolts. And the part about the reaper is such a poetic way to describe death isn't it. Somehow the lyrics harken back to the days of our childhood where we were allowed to dream of having superpowers like flying (on wings, or on winged shoes, or on thunderclouds, or on magic carpets, or) and being able to hurl lightning bolts and fire and ice etc etc.

So maybe it's a way of saying, be a child again, and "you can see where you are going" i.e. enlightenment or something along those lines.