“Godspeed” by Anberlin, Thursday, November 3, 2022
Brace yourself for today's song. On Anberlin's legendary third record, Cities, listeners are eased into one of Anberlin's fastest guitar-riff heavy tracks with an atmosphere-building track (Début). The instrumental track feels like Jerry Martin's epic Sim City 4 score, using guitars and sampled recordings to paint a dingy, urban landscape. What Anberlin creates with their third record is a portrait of wandering anonymously through bustling but lonely metropolises. In contrast to the "thousand names" lead singer Stephen Christian talks about in "Hello Alone," the singer talks about the theme of the album as "Man vs. Self," and those introspective lyrics can be heard throughout the record.
THEY LIED WHEN THEY SAID THE GOOD DIE YOUNG. But "Godspeed" isn't so much an introverted emo track as it is a hard rock cautionary tale about rock stars who die too young, leaving their fans wrecked by the wasted potential celebrities leave behind. Stephen Christian, in particular is addressing the 27 Club, a phenomenon about artists, often of different genres, who died of drug overdoses or suicide at the age of 27. Lyrically, Christian weaves Rock 'n' Roll lure in every line of the first single released from Cities. The first line references "Neverland," which could both evoke Peter Pan's world or it could be a veiled reference to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. Christian calls "white lines (cocaine), black tar (heroin), the matches." The chorus is a play on Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young." Elsewhere in the song we get fleeting references to Sid and Nancy, the death of the original Rolling Stones frontman Brian Jones, whose autopsy report read "death by misadventure." The song also makes a reference to The Velvet Underground's "Lexington," a song that describes a heroin dealer, and gives us the image of the Chelsea hotel, a notorious New York City landmark where many celebrities did drugs and hooked up. While the song can come across as a little preachy, Christian has talked about struggles he had on the road in the early days of touring, and how every substance and opportunity was available to emerging rock stars and many bands would get destroyed by drugs. Whether it's curiosity to try new things or a weak assent because of pressure to fit in, bands would get involved with drugs and often wouldn't last a long time.
BAD TURNS TO WORSE AND THE WORST TURN INTO HELL. "Godspeed" is perhaps guitarist Joseph Milligan's finest guitar work for Anberlin. The Deluxe Edition of Cities includes a DVD "Making of" documentary, which details the band's writing and recording process with producer Aaron Sprinkle and engineer Randy Torres. While the documentary portrays Stephen Christian as the band's poet, almost like emo's answer to U2's Bono, Milligan is portrayed as the band's serious composer, responsible for all of the music on the record. Cities is the band's fullest potential as a band sticking mostly to its home instruments of guitar, bass, and drums, though keys, synths, strings, and an elaborate choir do heighten these elements in various plays on the record. After Cities, Anberlin embraced more sparse instrumentation and more synths and pop recording technology, and with sparser guitar arrangements on later records, one may forget the shredding genius of "Godspeed." Drummer Aaron Lunsford of the band As Cities Burn hosted an episode of It's All Over Podcast about a Tooth & Nail songwriters fantasy draft. Joined with Emery's Matt Carter and Devin Shelton, Carter talks about how Milligan is an underrated musical genius in the Tooth & Nail scene, calling him a "student of every Tooth & Nail era," meaning that he can play most of the guitar riffs from every Tooth & Nail band. "Godspeed" hopes to put Anberlin in the lineage of great rock bands. Unfortunately, rock plummeted in popularity right after Anberlin scored a number one for "Feel Good Drag." It wasn't drugs that killed their chances, just poor timing with the record industry.
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