The Unavoidable Sun

My first music blog post is on The Sun by The Naked and Famous.

This song is primarily composed of synth-sounds with vocals, effects and bass beats with some soft hi-hats. The element of this song that initially caught me is its driving beat that slowly builds with the monotone vocals, used like soft percussion, to a crescendo that is again resolved briefly in the end, back to the initial tones. The whole piece has the same daunting sense of the imminent darkness. Clearly, the title, "The Sun", is ironic. But I also think that it plays a crucial role in the momentum of the song.

 Here it comes

The unavoidable sun
weighs my head
And what the hell have I done
And you know

I don't remember a thing

I don't remember

A thing
...
Here it comes
The unavoidable sum

Of what's just happened

And what's been done

And you know

I don't remember a thing

I don't remember

A thing

The "unavoidable sun" - due to the rotation of the Earth, the sun sets at night and returns in the morning. Humans cannot control the rotation of the Earth or the gravitational pull of the Sun. The song reflects our helplessness at the mercy of Nature. But not just physics. Buried in the lyrics, and in the ominous feel of the music, there's a sense that something bad happened and maybe even the "I" did that bad thing, but "I don't remember a thing". In this lyric, one can feel the inevitability of Human Nature - specifically, the evil parts of it.

The beauty of this song is both due to the clear contrast between the title and the driving, impenetrable darkness of the vocals, eerie synth sounds, deep 4/4 bass beats, and the repetition of the lyrics:

But it keeps on coming and I stop

But it keeps on coming and I just stand still

But it keeps on coming and I just stop moving



Then, upon the climactic peak, the repeated lyrics change to:

And I run, and I run, and I run and I run.

The Sun will shed light on what happened, which will reveal the horrible truth of Human Nature. The "I" in this piece is unsure whether to accept it - let the light reveal the truth no matter how much it hurts - or whether to try to outrun it, knowing full-well it cannot be outrun. But "I" will try to outrun it anyway, merely affirming the cowardice of humanity.