Song Analysis ” Crown of love” By: Arcade Fire

 

If you are like me and often randomly stumble across music often then you might have heard of Arcade Fire. I myself was introduced to their music about five years ago but really only knew one of their songs until I happened to stumble across more of their songs and then inevitably this one. I was drawn to the unique sound and deep messages that their songs had and when it came to ” Crown of love,” I was enchanted by the sadness and reality of every word. I fell in love with this song and am still in love with it to this day. Maybe, as you read the lyrics with my own thoughts shared throughout , you to will fall lin love with it and give it a listen and discover something that your ears adore.

“Crown Of Love”

They say it fades if you let it
Love was made to forget it
I carved your name across my eyelids
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love is falling from me.
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because the spark is not within me.

I think that sadly there is an element of truth to the idea that love fades if we let it. Falling in love often happens quickly and gives us this impression that love comes easily, but as I am sure all of us have learned: Love is far from easy. The whole act of looking into your companion’s eyes and loving them may seem easy at first but it is after time that we notice the little things that dare to shatter that picture perfect snapshot of love.Sometimes, I feel it is natural to feel the same sentiments that are being sung in this song. Jack White sang that  love itself was blindness but could it be that love makes us seek blindness. Blindness of heart. Blindness of mind. The need to shield ourselves from the state of how things really are? And the fact that the singer is asking for forgiveness because he no longer has that spark within him, there is something so simple and sad and beautiful in that line. I think that spark went out in him and now he is in blindness like he prayed for and sometimes that is the tragedy of love. Love comes quickly and goes just as fast if you are not willingly to commit and work at that relationship.

I snuffed it out before my mom walked in my bedroom.
The only thing that you keep changin’ is your name
My love keeps growin’ still the same
Just like a cancer
And you won’t give me a straight answer.

I think the idea of love growing like a cancer is really nothing new.But in the face of the previous lyrics, it seems odd that he is now focusing on the growth of his love. It is almost as if he is wanting to fight the love that grows within and therefore as it grows it also decays.

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love is falling from me.
If you still want me, please forgive me
Because your hands are not upon me.

I shrugged them off before my mom walked in my bedroom.
The pains of love
And they keep growin’,
In my heart there’s flowers growin’
On the grave of our old love
Since you gave me a straight answer.

If you still want me, please forgive me
The crown of love is not upon me.
If you still want me, please forgive me,
Because the spark is not within me.
It’s not within me.
It’s not within me.
You gotta be the one,
You gotta be the way,
Your name is the only word that I can say!
You gotta be the one,
You gotta be the way,
Your name is the only word,
The only word that I can say!
Only word that I can say!

Similarly, the idea of flowers growing signifies life– love– but in contrast, they are growing on a grave–death–the death of their love. The crown has fallen. Yet, he ends by saying that her name is the only word he can say. Even when love fades, I think the ghosts remains, the memories , the shared past. A name haunting the lips of a lost lover.

-Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts in the comments below.

-Wishing you the brightest of days,Eva

” Me and the pen, we are one. If its ink would cease to flow, my ink would cease to flow.”