Annotations for Propaganda

Lyric: Cold chick
Annotation:
He is insulting whoever he is talking to.

Lyric: Baby, don’t you know you can’t lose
Annotation:
No matter what the protagonist does in this song, the antagonist still wins, whoever the antagonist may be.

Lyric: You make me offers that I can’t refuse
Annotation:
Potential Godfather reference. Also implies that the person Matt’s talking to is controlling him.

Lyric: You keep telling pretty lies
 You toy with the truth
Annotation:
Shows how some media outlets manipulate the truth for the sake of making the world more dramatic.

Lyric: You got me trapped in your dark fantasy world
Annotation:
The verse highlights how people tend to believe what they see in the media, even when it is fake. The media can also exaggerate and make events seem a lot more impactful than they actually are, thus creating a “dark fantasy world” where the protagonist is stuck. The concept of being trapped in a fantasy world also refers to the Simulation.

Lyric: Floozy
Annotation:
Matt is refering to the mass media here. It’s very attractive and meanwhile feeds minds with every biased belief.

Lyric: I’m the ocean, you’re an oil slick
 Now I am choking on your thought pollution
Annotation:
Oil is insoluble in water. So it could easily cover the surface of seas and oceans and pollute the marine ecosystem.  Like how oil prevents the ocean from truly being seen, fake news is blinding us from the reality. Thought pollution is also a call forward to Thought Contagion, which deals with the same themes Propaganda does.

Lyric: Pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-paganda
 Pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-propa-gan-ganda
 Propa-gan ga
 Propa-propa-gan-ganda
 Pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-pro-ga-ga-ga-ga
Annotation:
They are creating this word by using effects on microphone such as vocoder effect. Similar to “The 2nd Law: Unsustainable”. The repetitive “Pro” syllable is also used as self-mockery as Bellamy is known to pronounce it as “Pwo”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx-67OaAvBI

Lyric: You ate my soul just like a Death Eater
Annotation:
Matt stated in an  interview with Myrock magazine that this line was intended to “address the generation who grew up with Harry Potter, therefore fantasy and magic, which are universes that lost some spotlight in the last years.” He continued, “When we were children, in the 80s, Sci-fi and mysterious worlds were strongly represented. So, incorporating Harry Potter references sounded totally coherent to me, given the themes we wanted to talk about in the album.” On the day of the album’s release, Matt shared this tweet, admitting his confusion between Harry Potter characters, in reply to a fan:  https://twitter.com/MattBellamy/status/1060885732796043265

