Everyone's heard the song. Voted Best Song of 2008 by readers of Rolling Stone, the first single "Human" from The Killers' new album has got everyone singing those 2 lines: "Are we human?/ Or are we dancer?" while thinking "It's dancer, right? It doesn't make sense to me but hell, it sounds like dancer!"
The lyrics stirred up so much confusion that it even has its own section in Wikipedia now:
There has been considerable confusion and debate over the line "Are we human or are we dancer?" in the song's chorus. Many have incorrectly heard "denser" instead of "dancer", a change which significantly alters the interpretation of the song's meaning. On the band's official website, the biography section states that Flowers is singing "Are we human, or are we dancer?" and also says that the lyrics were inspired by a disparaging comment made by Hunter S. Thompson.
Entertainment Weekly's Pop Watch section called this line the "silliest lyrics of the week". They were puzzled by the interpretation, stating "most dancers are generally human". Ganz with Rolling Stone called the line "classic Killers' nonsense."
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Flowers said that he was irritated over the confusion: "It's supposed to be a dance song, [the beat] goes with the chorus...If you can't put that together, you're an idiot. I just don't get why there's a confusion about it."
Well, Mr. Flowers, I guess I'm an idiot. Me and a few million others. Despite stating where you got the inspiration from I still don't know shit about "Are we DANCER?". Even if it's metaphorical, shouldn't it be "dancers"? I know it must make sense in some way, so come on and tell us how.
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17 comments:
At first hearing I actually thought that the lyrics were :- "Are we humid or are we denser"
o.O
I think the word was supposed to be 'dancer' and it's not 'dancers' to make it rhyme with the word 'answer'. And I don't know what's the fuss all about, there are so many other songs with stupid lyrics! And I don't know why everyone tries to understand the song (lol), just interpret it the way you like and stop arguing about it... you don't have to understand everything... there's no fun in always knowing everything anyway! Mystery is part of the fun and I like that song so kudos to the Killers!
*sighs*
First of all, I agree with MC, the actual intention of the author does not matter when it comes to interpreting a poem (please take my word for it, I don't feel like engaging into a discussion about Schopenhauer, Heidegger and Gadamer)
HOWEVER it's a quote by Hunter S. Thompson who accused America of raising a generation of dancers
http://www.amazon.com/Day-Age-Killers/dp/B001FWRZ46/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1226958731&sr=8-1
and that's the link
Oh and this is one possible interpretation, which accords with Thompson's quote
Are we human (free, intelligent) or are we dancer (unconsciously following a beat and obeying rules)
which makes a lot more sense and thought than people actually realised
At first I thought he was singing "Are we human, or are we denser?" which would have made sense.
But then I found out that it's actually dancer...
Load of bullcrap.
why would 'are we human or are we denser' make more sense than 'are we human or are we dancer?'
flowers has the the tendency of being faux-intellectual...but this was good.
just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it's crap.
i mean this is coming from the person who listens to the genius of 'hamster on a piano, eating popcorn'
lol
loads of the doors songs have crazy lyrics, but they still delivered some great songs
Let me clarify that I don't think the song is crap, it's catchy as hell.
Just like that "hamster on a piano" song.
dunno i don't find the song as far fetched, as let's say some of their other stuff.
and i think they made the song really fit in with thompson's thoughts
On a side note, I'm not saying it makes more sense, that's up to you, but "Are we denser?" DOES make sense.
It would be saying, "Are we human or are we something which lacks more intellectual acuity?"
but the phrase are we dancer has to be taken in the context of the quote (and the reasoning behind that quote)
grammatically it doesn't make sense, but they have poetic license, so that's ok.
i think the word 'denser' would have over simplified the meaning of the lyrics. and probably they were influenced by the original text, so it would have changed the meaning of the song
god i miss doing lit analysis
I actually like it better if it was 'denser' and I told alot of people that it was actually 'denser', then i saw an interview of the killers frontman stating it was 'dancer' >> from that on I didn't like it anymore anyway, forget that song since its gonna be overplayed in Malta, listen from the same album to 'Joy ride' that in my opinion is a more enjoyable song and a good fill for car cruisin'.
i think they meant 'dancer' as another race.. the same way you say we are human not humans...
It makes sense, and even makes grammatical sense, but it seems that most people can't understand it, even with the contextual background. Human (i.e., all that crap about 'God-given free will', etc., essentially makes his or her own decisions and is unaffected by the rest of the population) or dancer (given a beat, follows instructions, does not think for themself). It is not saying dancers are morons, it is talking about the mindset and making a comparison between a sheep (somebody whom follows others blindly rather than a small, fluffy animal) and a dancer (follows a set pattern that somebody else has decided).
Singing 'denser' would be ridiculous. Just stop.
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