Surprisingly, the verbs of action are either deleted or weakened or turned indirect ways: a passive present continuous or a weird past time. The “I” is back, but just to assert 3 negative things on oneself, 2 about dying, 1 about a speech impediment – which for a singer/songwriter, sounds ironic, but very symbolic of Crystal Castles’ style. Same problem of meaning: the audience can not make sure about what is this “it”: the scars, or something else that remains unnamed? But the structure of the track stays surprising, it does not sound like a classic Verse/Chorus/Verse. This line breaks the systematic jumps of meaning and keeps continuous with the previous line, but not for a better result, since it just contradicts and cancels it. Nobody can tell who is the “you” and what is the “it” in “you shrug it off” the “it” could mean the previous “scars”, but we can not be sure. The meaning jumps again for the third time in three lines. The voice totally changed: it became aggressive like the music.Ī medical-sounding line, after the “Hi”, creates a weird effect of contrast. A setup, the beginning of a conversation? It soon becomes clear that this “Hi” goes with nothing else and is a kind of wrong track – just meant to establish a fake cordiality just before passing on the attack.
The track starts on layer of 8-bit glitches accompanied by some powerful, aggressive beats.Ī nice woman’s voice saying hello… in strong contrast with the violent music. Crystal Castles – Alice Practice – Lyrics analysis, interpretation and meaning