Annotations for Drones

Lyric: Amen
Annotation:
The overall message of the song is very dark, a person’s entire family is killed by drones and the one doing the killing (both the drone and presumably the one operating it) feels nothing. The song notes the ease of doing so with technology and how it requires less and less thought to be put into the action of killing a human. The style of song is designed to sound like classic acapella christian evensong music, a style that is eerily calm for such a grave topic. The religious undertones of the style and the “Amen” at the end are nods to a kind of cult-ish regime and dystopian society that this album portrays (kind of a theme with some of Muse’s latest releases). This song reminds me a lot of “The Hymn of Acxiom” by Vienna Teng. Both similar in message and style. Furthermore, ‘Amén’ means “ so be it” and thus alludes to the true and commonplace nature of the disaster. The phrase also concludes the album, meaning that the line likely extends to the greater album narrative.

Lyric: Can you feel anything at all?
Annotation:
This line supports the overall theme of the album, that is: when people are given control of other people’s lives without having to suffer the consequences, then they lose their sense of guilt and empathy (as well as their moral compass or sense of right and wrong).

Lyric: Are you dead inside?
Annotation:
‘Are you dead inside?’ references the first song on the album, ‘Dead Inside. It brings the whole album together, as the last songs links back to the first song. It could also give the listener a feeling that people don’t learn from war, and that humanity will continue to make the same mistakes again and again. It could be seen as commentary on human nature, and that people can be weak to the temptation of power (and that power corrupts).

Lyric: Our lives between your fingers and your thumb
Annotation:
The album cover art illustrates this line.  The Handler has their lives ‘between his fingers’, as he could move the handle and have a drone take their lives.

Lyric: Now you can kill from the safety of your home with drones
Annotation:
This could very well be a slogan; Now you can kill from the safety of your home with drones™ Let the conspiracy theories begin!

Lyric: Killed by drones
 My mother, my father
 My sister and my brother
 My son and my daughter
Annotation:
This is a reference to the fifth song on the album, Reapers. However, it also serves as a way to tie the album itself together in a way that’s not nearly as positive as previous albums. The countdown heard in the middle section of “The Globalist” seems to be counting down to the launch of the drones (the Reapers), which eventually wipe out the resistance of the protagonists heard throughout “The Handler”, “Revolt”, and “The Defector”.

