Annotations for Reapers

Lyric: [Guitar Solo]
Annotation:
This guitar solo has been ranked the 8th greatest guitar solo of the 21st century so far by  Guitar World

Lyric: Electronically erased
Annotation:
Drones are controlled digitally by people sitting far away from where the drone actually is: drones are indeed electronic machines, they aren’t alive. The narrator is electronically  erased from the controller of the drone’s perspective: to her – after the mind control she was subjected to – the target is nothing but an idea, like an avatar of a virtual enemy, not a real human being. Thus people are not killed, they are just erased as a line in a program. With a further level of interpretation, this line implies that people are just basically numbers to the government, and once someone dies he gets deleted out of existence, with possible reference to the deletion from an electronic data base.

Lyric: Incidentally
Annotation:
Drone strikes  have been proven to result in civilian deaths which are often referred to as ‘accidents’ or ‘collateral damage’. This line is somewhat sarcastic and means to say that the deaths of civilians are coldly taken into account as a necessary evil, when not deliberately desired, and easily hidden. Pentagon records were in fact unsealed only in 2021.

Lyric: By your
Annotation:
The protagonist is talking to the person controlling the drones, calling them “your”, they belong to someone. This line can also mean that the protagonist has not yet accepted that she is an instrument of destruction, still referring to the drones as someone else.

Lyric: Here come the drones!
 Here come the drones!
 Here come the drones!
Annotation:
The radical change in the backing music, and the human voices being replaced for robotized ones could be an affirmation that the drones have indeed arrived and that they’re not goofing around.

Lyric: But all you’ve done is brutalise
Annotation:
The CIA has had some scandals in the past involving cruel and unusual punishment, and there are also issues involving unnecessary violence using drones in the US.

Lyric: ’Cause you’ve got the CIA, babe
Annotation:
The  CIA, or the Central Intelligence Agency, is notorious for skirmishing the law with its shadowy methods. This is proof that the subject of the song is the leader of the US, and once/is in a relationship with the protagonist.

Lyric: War, war just moved up a gear
 I don’t think I can handle the truth
Annotation:
He is saying that the ways wars are fought are getting much different. It is still political but it is getting more vicious. He can’t handle the truth that death is everywhere and is hinting him down.

Lyric: I’m just a pawn
 And we’re all expendable
Annotation:
The narrator knows that he and others around him are mere weapons, and if they should be killed, they can easily be replaced.

Lyric: You’ve got reapers and hawks, babe
Annotation:
The  General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper and  Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk are both drones which have been used by the US Air Force. There is also a wordplay, as the term ‘ hawks’ in the US indicates who advocates an aggressive or warlike policy, especially in foreign affairs.

Lyric: You kill by remote control
Annotation:
The oppressor doesn’t need to do anything other than control the drone, which has the capabilities needed to kill the oppressor’s enemies. It also makes a good analogy for war in general – leaders and generals, embodiments of the government (‘you’), sending soldiers out into battle to kill their enemies so they don’t have to get their hands dirty.

Lyric: Now I am radicalized
Annotation:
This could be interpreted two ways. Firstly, the narrator could be suggesting that he’s become “radicalized” in response to the aggression of the “drones”. In other words, he’s fighting back. Alternatively, and much more poignantly, the narrator/Bellamy could be noting that terms like “radicalization” are entirely subjective. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, and those with power, i.e. those controlling the “drones”, justify their actions by labelling their opponents as “radicalized”.

Lyric: And the world is on your side
Annotation:
The entire song is a (very) thinly veiled reference to US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. It’s not hard to connect the dots here. The US has “the world” on their side in the form of NATO, which many see as tantamount to US imperialism.  This line may also be talking about how many individuals support drone attacks and war in general.

Lyric: Drones (Killed by)
 Drones (Killed by)
Annotation:
An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone or drone, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is usually armed (aircraft ordnance). Aircraft of this type have no onboard human pilot.  In this song, the term “drones” refer both materially to the aircrafts and metaphorically to the soldiers who obey orders. The protagonist of the album is indeed recruited to become a “ human drone”: this song, along with most of  Drones, describes how many soldiers simply kill because they are told.

Lyric: Home, it’s becoming a killing field
Annotation:
You are never safe anymore, not even at home. If someone wants to, he can kill you with a drone anywhere and anytime he wants to. The battle field is moved to everywhere…

Lyric: With no recourse and there’s no one behind the wheel
Annotation:
Since it’s a drone that is targetting him, there’s no one directly behind the wheel, like in an airplane, and he has no choice or hope of aid (“no recourse”). The line highlights the sense of total dehumanisation in the modern war, where you don’t even have the possibility to fear or blame a human enemy.

Lyric: There’s a crosshair locked on my heart
Annotation:
He’s constantly targeted and there’s nothing he can do about it. Due to the crosshair constantly pointing at his heart, he has to listen. When making a mistake, he’ll be dead instantly. This could also be a metaphorical crosshair: someone always trying to sway his opinions and ready to use extreme methods to do so at any time. In fact this line echoes back to the removal of love and empathy seen in  “Dead Inside” and  “Psycho” – the pinpoint targeting of a vital organ but also the metaphorical source of love.

Lyric: Hellfire, you’re wiping me out, killed by
Annotation:
Hellfire is an AGM-144 anti tank missile that was launched from the MQ-9 Reaper drone, which is arguably the most iconic and notorious hunter killer drone of the early 21st century.  Like soldiers could be caught in a crossfire on the battle field, everyone is now walking in the crossfire, since the battle field is everywhere.

