Exploding Suns: reacting before it's too late
First-reaction videos are a thing.
As is appropriate for my age, I’m a little late to the party on this trend. I found an article that suggested that they’ve been around for over a decade and a half and are becoming ridiculously popular.1 As an example, ZIAS! (I guess I’m supposed to keep the exclamation mark there) has a social media presence based primarily on first-reaction videos with almost 5 million subscribers and his most popular video has 24 million views.2 I suppose there are a handful of reasons this form of social media has become popular - some creators use them as an opportunity to flaunt their musical knowledge whereas others use the videos simply as a vehicle to flex their rizz.3
I’d suggest that the point of these videos is accurately described in a quote from one of the guys from ZIAS! “Music is just something I'm passionate about. So, how we react on camera is how we react off camera."4 Put another way, “One thing remains consistent throughout: they show authentic, relatable reactions.”5 Ever since the advent of reality TV in the 90s (though it existed before that decade) society seems to have a troubled relationship with what is true and authentic. In such a destabilized world, finding something that feels real is like stepping onto solid ground after sailing on the “wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”6
While this could have been a lead-in to a quick first reaction to the song Exploding Suns by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, it’s not. The only quick reaction I had to this song was that I was surprised by how quickly I noticed that this song is written in ¾ time - that’s me being authentic, but that’s all I got for first reactions. Though I try to consider different perspectives about a song, I rarely think about time signature and so that was a bit surprising to me that that’s what my first reaction would be.7 Sometimes first reactions aren’t that interesting.
Anyway, on to more drawn-out reflections about the song. The beat starts simply, emphasizing the basic timing with a single note marking the commencement of each new bar. The initial simplicity eventually creates an immersive vibe that pushes the song forward but ensures it doesn’t move too fast. To state the obvious, KGLW8 cares about the rhythm of the song and trusts it to supplement the range of outer-space instrumentation to accompany the content of the lyrics.
I don’t really have the patience to figure out the answer but I’m happy to ask the question - how many different instruments or sounds were used in this song? They avoid the noisiness that can come from so many sounds by placing them sparingly between a rhythmic foundation and the lyrical framework. While I tend to be critical of songs that rely on computerized elements, KGLW pulls off a nice hybrid of their classic rock instruments with creative electronic production. The cosmic vibe of the lyrics jive nicely with the ambiance of the instrumentation.
My initial reaction to the lyrics was actually just a question - is this a metaphor?9 My more considered follow-up is that is the wrong question. Exploding Suns uses the setting of the destruction of our planet to encourage us to think about how we’ll face our own earthly end. The lyrics outline something that scientists predict will actually happen in about 5 billion years.10 Thus, there is a certain factual legitimacy to the words - it really does take eight minutes and twenty seconds for the light of the sun to arrive on Earth.11 It’s not terribly poetic or wokely offensive to use the term white dwarf - it’s a legit astrological term.12 Having said that, KGLW is not playing the same game as They Might Be Giants did with Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas).13 While scientists anticipate that the end of the world won’t really come for 5 billion years - this song becomes relevant when we think about our own personal endings that will be more abrupt than our minds can comfortably grasp.
KGLW don’t seem inclined to tell us what to think or feel about an eventual death of the planet. Rather they seem intent to encourage us to let this idea sit in our minds. We may not spend our days feeling the oncoming pressure of the end of the world in the way this song describes. But it’s not uncommon advice to think about the end of our time on earth. I finished a book not too long ago entitled Four Thousand Weeks, which uses that unit of time (roughly the average lifespan) to make a point about the brevity of life.14 I’m in the middle of another book which explicitly encourages us to think about the end of life as a tool for better living now.15 Most religions ask their adherents to spend at least some of their time considering their fate beyond death. I could go on but in this context it seems like a reasonable artistic endeavor for KGWLto be asking us to perform this exercise with a cool galactic vibe.
I was working on that and then this simple line stopped me.
Our sins to be absolved.
A few months ago when I first started writing this, I wanted to write something good about this line. It feels significant but I wasn’t quite sure what to say. To be clear my procrastination played a big role in slowing the completion of this essay but part of it was my uncertainty about how to approach these five words. Moving forward, with a question - what is sin? There are some behaviors that are easily agreed upon examples of sin such as murder and stealing. But, it’s hard to understand sin just by making a list of examples.16 Many people would define sin as any behavior that goes against a recognized moral law. I think there is value in having a list of thou shalts and thou shalt nots but we need more than that. I’ve come to think about sin as anything that distances us from the Divine. I assume I’m moving beyond KGWL’s intent but I think to use the phrase “our sins” is to recognize and accept the collective distance between God and mankind.
Absolution is a Christian term that, for reasons unknown to me, isn’t generally used by Latter-day Saints. A comparable LDS term would be the remission of sins. When I consider my definition of sin - distance from God - then I’d argue that KGWL is indicating that as we leave this world we return to God’s presence. I’m obviously making some significant theological leaps for KGWL and so when it comes to the absolution of our sins I can really only guess at their response to “how is it done?”17 But the point of the song isn’t really for them to answer such questions but rather for me to ask myself. I believe there is value in considering a future state that will be different from our current existence (though perhaps with some significant similarities).18
It would be easy to interpret Exploding Suns as a dark song. To be clear it describes the destruction of the physical earth and humanity being wiped out and an utter lack of light that would accompany the death of the sun. But maybe it’s not that bad, maybe that’s not the point of the song. While the concluding message of the song is that this destructive future may come “at any time” we don’t have to be afraid of what comes next, even as we live fully in the present.
https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2018/01/youtube-music-reaction-videos-rise-science-understanding
The popular song they’re reacting to is Look at Me by XXXTENTACION (I’m a little uncomfortable with the unnecessary all caps but will try to respect his artistic vision). I didn’t actually listen to the video as it didn’t seem worth trudging through the profanity and most of the other videos did the same.
Just prior to writing this we had a discussion at supper about slang terms in use by people younger than me. This included a debate of whether or not Eli has rizz. The way a middle-aged(ish) white guy would use this term is interchangeable with the word charisma. I like to think that using it in this way ruins a bit of its value to the younger crowd and yes I realize that it may have a more vulgar implication regarding a guy’s ability to develop superficial relationships with women whom he inappropriately objectifies.
https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/movies/fascinating-rise-youtube-music-reaction-175725345.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGpicvboMsEBYNXMVr-_re9baEW7dviYWs0jIdGS2JBcFZ874lR-Yhu7tlkVJ8F-8HhGTLhgQlzZl8J2KVGT5ruNTivSY10YVLzhnebKVG6jKp5LTjqwzfElotMmYZBSY5I0qP8A3QO63Htgy9P8_eo71pjA-ImsoZZwY-BIgjJu
https://riverside.fm/blog/best-reaction-videos
James 1:6
I googled popular songs that are in ¾ time and discovered that one of my favorites by REM, Everybody Hurts, is in ¾ time. It also seems footnote worthy to remember that whenever I think of trying to identify a time signature of a song I recall a bonus question in band class where we had to listen to something and figure out the time signature. I thought it was so hard then, but most of the time I wouldn’t think it is now.
Not sure if that’s an accepted acronym but I’m sticking to it.
To be clear - I don’t think this was a true ‘first reaction’ situation as I think I’d listened to the song a few times but not really grasped the lyrics. When I first looked up the lyrics while listening is when I started to consider this question.
https://www.livescience.com/when-will-sun-explode
For additional reading about the foundational science that gives us that information here’s a quick link for you: https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/ole-roemer-speed-of-light
I’m not really qualified to define a white dwarf. Their existence was first discovered in 1910 and the term white dwarf was coined in 1922 by some Dutch-American astronomer. Basically, it’s a different phase of the life of a star. It seems to involve two things happening: the star will shine less brightly and shrink into a much more dense material.
This TMBG song apparently took all its lyrics from a 1950s space textbook. I didn’t realize that it’s actually a cover of a song by Hy Zaret and they actually did a second version to be more historically accurate in 2009. I think the game they’re playing combines a catchy tune with bare facts - there’s no story or conflict, just nerds and instruments.
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks
Arthur Brooks, From Strength to Strength
King Benjamin taught his people, “And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.” He then goes on to explain how we deal with our mortal circumstances where not every potential sin can be easily identified, “But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not. (Mosiah 4:29-30).
Enos 1:7
D&C 130:2