Dan Deacon - "Wham City" [11:45]

"Wham City" is split distinctly into two parts. The first part is seven minutes, the second part is almost five. They seem like separate approaches to the same song, glued together, but their union evokes in me separate eras of a great and old city.

In Part I, we slowly enter Wham City, old stone pillars hold the sky resting just above the rooftops, and the town square is eerily deserted, tables and chairs empty, until (at 1:51) people, rows and rows of people, swoop into the carrefour from the woods and begin to sing, hands splayed, in tribute. They build a brass fountain in the center of the square, and it is the pride of Wham City. And in the infant days of this city, life is hard but worthwhile, as the citizens have found a common goal, and have successfully found a way to work on a community; with surrender.

In Part II (at 7:12), we return to Wham City, in the far distant future, where the poor have been replaced by robot slaves, and the rich that remain are organic humans. The poor sing a working song as they shove stacking blocks beneath their human masters elevating them higher and higher, as high as they can stack, digging up the dirt from the once-deserted square to make the artificial mountains even taller. Eventually they hit brass, and carefully sweep it away, to find the fountain, the one the original pioneers had built, and the robots are the only ones listening to the message that emanates from within, and they promptly stop their stacking and follow the newly-freed spirits of the city back into the woods outside of town. [Buy]

--

Neil Young - "The Way" [Buy]

these are the only words that come to mind

(Saiga Yuji)