Composition and Meaning
In the intro is a citation of the five tone musical phrase from the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The song features vocals from both Bellamy's higher and lower ranges layered and both synthesised and live trumpet parts. The guitar sound in the song was inspired by the 1962 number one hit "Telstar" by The Tornados (George Bellamy, Matt Bellamy's father, was the band's rhythm guitarist). The song, taken in entirety, also bears a striking resemblance to George Bellamy's composition "Ridin' the Wind". The first noise heard in the song is an explosion, then a horse neigh. The first 2:03 of the song is a guitar solo to the tune of the lyrics, before Bellamy sings "Come ride with me, through the veins of history."
The song's meaning is to teach people to stand up for themselves and make their own destiny.
Bellamy has stated that on the album in general he tried to create a vision of what is occurring in the song. For example, the bassline has a galloping rhythm depicting someone riding a horse.
Read more about this topic: Knights Of Cydonia
Famous quotes containing the words composition and/or meaning:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“Parents must not only have certain ways of guiding by prohibition and permission; they must also be able to represent to the child a deep, an almost somatic conviction that there is a meaning to what they are doing. Ultimately, children become neurotic not from frustrations, but from the lack or loss of societal meaning in these frustrations.”
—Erik H. Erikson (20th century)