"Break me in, teach us to cheat
And to lie and cover up
What shouldn’t be shared
And the truth’s unwinding
Scraping away at my mind
Please stop asking me to describe
For one moment
I wish you’d hold your stage
With no feelings at all
Open minded
I’m sure I used to be so free
Self expressed, exhausting for all to see
And to be what you want
And what you need
And the truth’s unwinding
Scraping away at my mind
Please stop asking me to describe
Wash me away
Clean your body of me
Erase all memories
They’ll only bring us pain
And I’ve seen all I ever need"
These are the lyrics to a song called Citizen Erased by the British alternative rock band Muse. The beautiful thing about Muse is that, unlike so many common artists today, they have deep meanings in their songs that, for the most part, convey much truth. At the same time, they are able to maintain an excellent tune. Citizen Erased, for instance, starts off with an intense electric guitar intro, and the song changes moods back and forth from that to a more quiet, contemplative nature. This goes on for about six minutes, until the song changes completely and starts to take a much more lighthearted approach, but still remaining wistful, reminiscent of the first part of the song. In the last stanza, the lead singer, Matthew Bellamy, uses a pure falsetto leaving the listener with a sense of yearning, aware of the wearisome world we live in.
Citizen Erased is a hard song to figure out. However, in an interview, Matthew described it:
"It's an expression of what it feels like to be questioned. I spend more time than most people being asked about purpose, and it's a strange feeling. I don't really have the answers and I have to respond on the knowledge I have obtained so far, but the problem is that it gets printed, and something else has come along that's made you completely disagree with what you said.”
Matthew’s dilemma is a common one. From the first part of the song, he expresses how frustrated and confused he is from not being able to really find what he believes is his purpose. This is the result of the fallen world we all live in; Matthew is a desperate sinner like the rest of us. As we hear in the last stanza, his solution is to forget all of his frustration and lack of answers, to simply wash it away. We know that we struggle with some of the same things, but we have a much more satisfying resolution. Rather than forgetting our problems, we settle on our identity in Jesus Christ. He is our true purpose, our answer. Matthew just hasn’t come to see that yet.
Citizen Erased is one song out of many brilliant songs the band has written. Among others, there is Unintended, Soldier’s Poem, Sunburn, Starlight, and Invincible. All of these are great songs, and yet cover a large variety of topics- whether love, guilt, the longing for peace, or having the ability to stand up for what you think you should. The band is Atheistic, but we as Christians can still relate to a lot of what they bring up, and can apply some of these things to our own identities in our Perfect Saviour.
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