Muse’s Survival for the Olympics: A Gold-Deserving Theme Song …?
With the London Olympics 2012 just round the corner, Survival, a track from the Brit prog rock band Muse’s upcoming album The 2nd Law, has been selected as the official theme song for the Games.
According to Matt Bellamy, guitarist, vocalist , and front man of the band, the song was written with the Olympic athletes’ total conviction and determination to win in mind.
A “prophecy” fulfilled on my part.
Not at all thrilling, though — on a personal level, at least.
First, the lyrics.
As far as I understand, the whole spirit behind the Olympic Games is supposed to be highly noble: it is not so much about the individual athlete’s desire to compete and be the ultimate champion as it is to (hopefully) cultivate a sense of sportsmanship both in the athletes themselves and in those who witness their moments of glory — not to say to promote world peace and harmony within the context of physical sports.
Apparently, Muse has infiltrated the theme song with their own idea of the importance of personal fame and success (as in Muscle Museum, [1] for example), hoping to make it work both ways. Unfortunately, with lyrics as such (see below), I am not too optimistic about it. After all, how belittling is it to assume that athletes of this caliber would compete for the sake of vengeance (be it within themselves or against one another) at the level of the Olympic Games?
Yes, I am prepared
To stay alive
I won’t forgive
Vengeance is mine
And I won’t give in
Because I choose to thrive
Yeah, we’re gonna win
I think, for the Olympics specifically, theme songs should be made for them, not picked out from other people’s ready-to-go material. Then again, I was a really REALLY big fan of the marketing for the Beijing Olympics, including its Beijing Welcomes You song.
@amy, while I agree that theme songs should be tailor-made for specific occasions, I would recommend that Matt look into the following piece for inspiration and/or sound bites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrc3S1esSkg&feature=share&list=PLEBEC755E07E727E2
This piece is very romantic and sounds quite similar to the Chopin etude that he uses in the intro of Survival. Plus, it was also written by the English composer Edward Elgar. :)
BTW, the official vid is just out.
A converging review from Forbes regarding the lyrics.
@Adrienne Lew, thematically speaking, I agree with Forbes. I’m confused though… it seems sketchy that the London Committee picked the song from the album and that Matt wrote the song thinking about the Olympics. xD You should make a feature analyzing past Olympic songs.
A similar issue could be with Bjork’s Oceania used for the Sydney Olympics, even though you could argue the song was uniting the whole continent xD
I only remember Gloria Estefan’s song because… you know, it’s Gloria Estefan. LOL
@amy, I just noticed that the Olympics Committee version has edited out the Chopin Tristesse sound bites (00:27-00:54) … Not without reasons, apparently: listen.
So Matt got started writing the theme song like a year ago … Why didn’t any of his management agency people give him any better advice than what we have in the lyrics now??