This song from the album of the same name is a good demonstration of the dynamic sounds and styles that Porcupine Tree has to offer with their music.
This song is less of a story and more of a commentary on the direction that modern life is taking with technology, especially with youth. It starts out really simple, with an acoustic guitar lick followed by a bare bones drum beat. The transition from the acoustic music to the synth and lyrics feels representative of the transition from a simpler life to the modern one, especially with the vocal distortion.
The structure of the lyrics as fast paced spoken word shows the unemotional and inexpressive nature of the modern era that is inherent in the content of lyrics. Everything in the content is rage against the MTV generation/Generation X trend that seems to cause adolescent violence. What the video and lyrics in combination convey to me is that an excess of the electronic age causes children to become desensitized to the violence and because of that inhabit the violence that they were exposed to.
Since this song is only four minutes long, I think I can forgive the simplification of the issue and as a modest songwriter myself I can understand that the narrative is about the extremes and not the issue as a whole. As a gamer the "XBOX is a god to me" line felt like the standard public backlash to a school shooting, blaming the tech for the child's behavior. The kids in the song are on pills, playing games, carrying guns around, and it isn't the parent's fault for letting them do all of that shit, buying them the pills and games. As a personal belief, that is often where I stand on a lot of the issues brought up in the song.
Aside from that little rant that the lyrics made me write, I think that the musical progression is solid, leading up to the simple guitar riff that drives most of the song. The chorus is a great difference from the verses, sounding more like a plea from the child instead of being a brain dead consumer. All in all, a good track.
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