Metal Fingers

Metal Fingers is an indie electronica song by Electric President and released as track 8 on S/T on 2006-01-24. The band doesn't directly credit lyrics or composition, instead, every song is credited to the duo, Ben Cooper and Alex Kane. On the album recording, Cooper sings vocals.

The song examines the futility of an individual trying to change the world.

Personal

I believe the first song I heard from Electric President was Monsters, which I liked enough to download the band's albums (only two at the time). Metal Fingers quickly became my favorite song off S/T. I love the soft synthesizer with the repetitive percussion and the soft lyrics of the beginning.

The initial lyrics remind me of a powerful being emotionlessly dissecting a city the way a biologist would dissect an animal. The lyric "metal fingers scrape the sky," make it seem as though the buildings are actually living appendages of the city. I love the lyric, "the windows look like Christmas lights from out here," which makes me think about seeing the lights of a city from an airplane at night.

I especially love when the song erupts and the vocals are spat out, rapid-fire, especially the break with, "no, no, no, no, no." Although I don't share the futility expressed in the lyrics, there are times when I do feel like nothing I do (or anyone else does) actually matters, despite my juvenile ideals of wanting to improve the world. One thing I like about the last line is that he must convince himself there is no difference. This offers a glimmer of hope because, if he already knew there were no difference, he wouldn't have to convince himself. It's as though he wants to hang his head and give up, but he either knows or believes there is a difference.

Lyrics

Stand and move and walk across the water,
Peel the cover from the city,
Watch its insides twitch and smoke and rotate endlessly.
Sinking; moving deep beneath the water.
Lots of other worlds exist.
Soon enough we'll tear them open.
Soon enough we'll break them too.

Swimming, watching concrete eat the ocean.
Metal fingers scrape the skies.
The windows look like Christmas lights from out here.
Floating; counting clouds; they're slowly fading,
Blending in with cardboard skies.
Soon we'll manufacture replicas;
It's all replaceable.

From the sky, the train tracks look like stitches,
Like they're holding the world together; like it'll blow any minute.
And I've got another thought I'll keep to myself,
Until the skeletons walk free; until the make-up all comes off.
There's nothing new to discover, there's nothing new to invent,
There's nothing new to think that hasn't been thought of before, and
There's nothing left to believe we haven't already forgotten,
There's nothing left, there's nothing new, there's nothing-
No, no, no, no, no.
And I've got another dream I'll keep to myself,
Until the tyrants are dead and the patriots are swallowed whole.
And I've got a bottle I can aim at the center,
Full of letters, as a kid, I'd always meant to send.
We'd speak our minds and change the world;
We'd fix the past and pave the way.
But now we're fresh out of heroes; and now we've run dry on hope.
There are no saviors in technology: just quick fixes,
And holes, within holes, within holes, within you,
And a place to hang my head, and convince myself there is no difference.