One of the great unsolved mysteries of my lifetime is the great question of, “Are we human or are we dancer?” It was posed to us in the early 2000’s by The Killers in their attempt to prove they are more than a one hit wonder, and all these years later I can’t answer either of those questions.
The songwriter claims it is an easy question and speaks to the nature of free will. Are we human or are we dancing to someone else’s beat, but I am not sure that works. Let’s replace the line with other occupations. Are we human or are we police, are we human or are we doctor, are we human or are we receptionist, are we human or are we plumber. Some of those might continue the metaphor but it feels like it falls apart very fast because you see all of those occupations are also humans.
That is just one song from that era with ridiculous lyrics. Think about how Fall Out Boy was either watching U2 or YouTube from a closet or Kings of Leon celebrating sex on fire. When there is a burning sensation associated with sex it is not a good thing and definitely not deserving of a song.
It was a strange era in music, but I would go back in an instant. I can’t put my finger on it but music got a lot less fun and willing to take risk around 2016. I really can’t say what happened but I feel it was something big that put a damper in a lot of people’s lives and we’ve been living under this malaise for all these years. A decade of sadness in music or something like that.
Hopefully whatever force that brought darkness to our land leaves soon and we can get back to ridiculous songs that make no sense when you think about them. It would be even better if we can’t fully understand all the lyrics and our misheard lyrics somehow make more sense than the real ones. Until then I will leave you with this one question. Are we human or are we dancer?
David Huzzard Writes 