Arcade Fire debuted a timely new song, ‘Generation A’, on Stephen Colbert’s live U.S. election night special.
As per Variety, the Canadian (Win and Will Butler were both born in the U.S. though) band played the song on the momentous edition of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, November 3rd.
The host introduced the song as “inspired by the current climate of the country, with a hopeful message to the youths,” before cutting to a sparkling studio setting. A masked child strutted into the room, shouting “This is generation A! And we’re not gonna wait!” The band then launched into the straightforward rock anthem, with its repetitive chorus, “I can’t wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Too little too late!”
Butler sings “They say wait a little longer / And the times are gonna change,” the latter line surely a nod to Bob Dylan’s classic 1964 song ‘The Times They Are a-Changin”. It’s an Arcade Fire song so the rhythm pounds momentously. As far as protest music goes though, ‘Generation A’ is pretty meagre but its choral platitude is apt for the uncertainty of the U.S. election result.
It’s a rare sighting of the band since their divisive 2017 album Everything Now. However, in an interview with producer Rick Rubin last month on the Broken Record podcast, Win Butler revealed that the group has written “two or three” albums worth of material that they plan to record in the coming weeks.
“Once your body’s already going, there’s no stopping it, so I’ve just been writing,” he said. “I can’t remember a time when I’ve written more. [It] feels like being 18, sitting by the piano for five days in a row working on a melody for a verse. It’s been pretty amazing actually.
”He said one silver lining of lockdown has been the time it’s offered to work on new material. “We have a studio, have every keyboard, drum machine, piano – everything I could want – and fucking time. The one piece that’s been missing [on previous albums] is the time, and now the time is there.”
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Check out ‘Generation A’ by Arcade Fire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvqNWYggnVA
