2
Beggars
by Thrice
from the album Beggars
Selected lyrics:
Tell me, what can you claim / Not a thing, not your name / Tell me if you can recall / Just one thing that's not a gift in this life
My thoughts on this song:
Thrice's biggest strength has always been the cohesion they have as a band. Lyrics and vocals support music and vice versa. They really know how to work together to achieve a feeling. They have a lot of great songs, but this one takes it to another level. It starts out soft but tense, and then fiery guitar comes in, burning Dustin's vocals along the way, as the song builds tension. After a short acoustic break, the song explodes into an apocalyptic, absolutist instrumental jam. The lyrics are about the smallness of people within the universe, and the song feels like the stars falling down on you. It taps into the fear I feel at night when I'm falling asleep and suddenly I think about the frailty of the entire human civilization against something so trivial to the universe as an asteroid. As a side note, this is basically the song that taught me how musicians can pour their emotions into an instrument — when I saw Thrice perform this live in Salt Lake City during high school, shortly after Teppei Teranishi lost his mother, his guitar work during the end of this song felt just like grief.
