Give Me The Future
Melting away into virtual lives as a means of escape from the ills of offline life feels increasingly impossible.
Back in February, my pastor pointed me to Bastille’s latest album entitled Give Me The Future. He recommended it not just because it sounds good—though it does—but because he knows my writing and knew I would appreciate the theme and subject matter of the album.
The music review website Pitchfork writes in their review of the album, “Give Me the Future is a full-fledged concept album…with an elaborate backstory involving a fictitious company called Future Inc, whose products allow users to escape into virtual worlds limited only by their own imaginations.”
The album is relatively short, clocking in at just 40 minutes long, but it is packed with profound reflection on our present (and future) virtual reality. I joked on Twitter after I first listened to the album that if my book had a soundtrack, this album would be it.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to highlight just a few of the songs’ lyrics and explain why I find them so profound and timely.
Distorted Light Beam
Here are some lyrics from the debut single and first song on the album, Distorted Light Beam:
It isn't enough
To start a riot
Distort the light beam
Until I like me
It isn't enough
If this is real life
I'll stick to L:'
Come see what I seeFeeling like
If this is life
I'm choosin' fiction
Ooh whoa, ooh whoa
Call it faith
Call it fame
The fantasy's the sameWhen I'm dreamin' tonight, I can do anything
When I'm dreamin' tonight, I can go anywhere
When I'm dreamin' tonight, I can be anyone
So don't wake me up, don't wake me up
When I'm dreamin' tonight, I can do anything
When I'm dreamin' tonight, I can go anywhere
When I'm dreamin' tonight, I can be anyone
So don't wake mе up, don't wake me up
The music video for this song (here) and the album in general does feel quite dystopian. In fact there are multiple references to Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World on the album, with one song bearing the title of Huxley’s book.
I think the idea in this song is profound and so timely for our present relationship with the social internet. The lead singer sings, in paraphrase, “If this is what life is like, I’m choosing fiction. I would rather escape to my dreams (or a virtual reality) than live in this real life.”
So often we attempt to escape the horrors of “real life” by fleeing to our virtual lives online. Some of us may have accomplished the increasingly difficult task of curating online personas and presences that are, in fact, detached from life offline. This used to be far easier in the early days of the internet, but today so much of what we do is attached to our real identities and faces.
However, most of us cannot escape real life when we attempt to flee it in our virtual lives. We hear of the evils in Ukraine, and in an attempt to escape the bad feelings by scrolling on social media, we’re hit in the face with more terrible images or stories of the events over there. Perhaps on a more personal level, if we have a rough week at work and we try to escape it by binging Netflix on a Friday night while scrolling, we come across pictures of co-workers’ or friends’ lives that make us hate our own.
The dream-like, virtual realities to which we attempt to flee when we are shaken by the horrors of offline life appear to be places of refuge, but they are just mirages of misery.
You can listen to “Distorted Light Beam” here.
Back To The Future
Perhaps the most striking lyrics from the song “Back To The Future,” are the first verse and pre-chorus:
Feels like we danced into a nightmare
We're living 1984
If doublethink's no longer fiction
We'll dream of Huxley's Island shoresWaking life, it lets us down
So close your eyes and melt away
Here we see the interplay of Orwell and Huxley, 1984 and Brave New World, novels who find a fitting soundtrack in this album.
Notice again, like in “Distorted Light Beam,” we have a theme of escape in the pre-chorus, “Waking life, it lets us down / So close your eyes and melt away.” The protagonist of this story, or the “main character” of the song if you will, finds solace from the waking life, “real life,” that he melts away into a sort of dream, virtual life.
This sounds like it could be applicable for us today, but only if we are careful to curate real life out of our online lives. Right now there is a raging online debate on TikTok and elsewhere about whether there are more doors or wheels in the world (it’s wheels, btw). The debate is being had in good fun and has spilled over to older forms of culture-making like late-night talk shows, but the debate originated on social media. This is a fun debate that can easily be used to distract away from the terrors of “waking life.”
The problem is that you could be watching a funny TikTok explaining why there are more wheels than doors in the world, swipe on to the next video, and be met with horrific scenes from besieged Ukrainian cities. Melting away into virtual lives as a means of escape from the ills of offline life feels increasingly impossible. A line that was once distinct, and then blurry, now feels almost non-existent. Online life is real life as much as offline life.
You can listen to “Back To The Future” here.
Club 57
Definitely the most striking part of this song, which is one of my favorites, is its chorus, which goes:
Is it love?
Is it l-l-love?
Or are we just craving attention?
Is it love?
Is it l-l-love?
Or do we just want satisfaction?
I have written before that I think one of the most grave allures of the social internet is that it can make us feel affection without the threat of vulnerability that comes with true intimacy. We so desperately want to be loved, yet we’re so afraid of being vulnerable. The hollow facsimile of intimate friendship we foster online provides feelings of being loved without true intimacy.
Is it love? Are are we just craving attention?
You can listen to “Club 57” here.
Plug In…
This is the fourth and final song I’d like to highlight from the album. It is also my favorite. Here is just the first verse and chorus:
Plug me right in, jump through the screen
Final frontier, I can be anything
Maddening scenes, Anthropocene
Blink and you'll miss us like we were a dream
Maybe A.I. is the messiah
My machine's learned all my kinks and desires
Virtual porn, airbrush my jaw
Are we having fun yet?
Endless hot takes, chaos'll reign
Guess we learned nothing from history's mistakes
Billionaires, rocket to Mars
Stuck on Earth drinking in drivеrless cars
Icecaps'll fall, Cali'll burn
Willful denial until it's my turn
Bunch of old whitе men who don't give a f*
Are we having fun yet?Tell me we'll be alright
Say that we'll be fine
Lie to me it's alright, right?
Say that we'll be fine
Just a little bit of tenderness
It's a little bit of tenderness
Say that we'll be alright, right?
Even if it's lies
I mean…man.
I don’t really know how to elaborate too much on this. It’s just so good and so insightful. It’s like a more musically beautiful version of the comedic reflections of Bo Burnham in his Inside special, especially the part about having fun.
Beyond the different shoutouts of the problems of progress like messianic views of artificial intelligence, endless hot takes, and airbrushed selfies—which are all brilliant in their own way—I find most profound the refrain, “Are we having fun yet?” It reminds me of Neil Postman’s incessant questioning of any new technology, “What is the problem to which this new technology is a solution?”
What is the problem for which social media is a solution? What is the problem for which face filters are a solution? What is the problem for which hot takes are a solution?
Are we having fun yet? Has this all paid off yet?
And then in the chorus we get the lead singer’s plea, “Tell me it’s alright, even if you’re lying. Say that we’ll be fine.”
You can listen to “Plug In…” here, and also this live version is very good.
We Must Continue to Wrestle
I have been so encouraged to see art like this the last few years. Between Burnham’s Netflix special Inside and this album we have a couple of great artists wrestling with what it means to live online and offline simultaneously.
As we spiral forward through space and time toward whatever virtual reality the future holds, whether similar or different from the present, we cannot lose the will to grapple with what it means to live offline and online at the same time. Many of us, I think, are just starting to come to grips with the myriad ways our online lives are warping our offline lives. We’re beginning to recognize that the line we once saw between the two was nothing more than a mirage. With this realization comes the reality that we cannot use one to escape from the other.
Chris thank you for these insights. I just discovered you from a youth culture podcast and as a youth pastor am so thankful for the conversations you are inspiring in my heart and mind.
"Many of us, I think, are just starting to come to grips with the myriad ways our online lives are warping our offline lives." Absolutely!! I would say the last 2.5-3 years have been just that for me! A continual, plodding effort to put technology in its place.