Ocean Of Noise

It's certainly an interesting time to be a resident of the planet Earth at the moment, as attempts continue to stave off meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and NATO planes soar into the sky above Libya. It goes without saying that I wish nothing but the best of luck to the workers battling to bring the Fukushima plant back under control at great risk to their own safety, and the pilots doing their best to prevent what could otherwise be a massacre in North Africa.

The folks I have a short fuse with are those I politely term the fucking-hell-the-world's-ending crowd, who tend to pop up from time to time, usually when there's turmoil afoot; i.e. now. You may have met them. They include people who believe that Nostradamus was any more than an eloquent fantasist, people who suggest that their preferred deity is the architect of natural disasters and/or geopolitical turbulence, and people who think that anything is going to happen on December 21st 2012 aside from a lot of last-minute shopping, and the exhaustive airplay of Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody.

It's nothing new. As long as people have been in the world, they've been predicting the end of it. We do love hankering after an apocalypse. Solar eclipses, poor harvests, the Mongol expansion, the Black Death, the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, Birmingham City winning the League Cup; all of these things have, at various points, been heralded as signs that God's about to get off his arse and charge down here, smiting with gusto. And yet, as shocking as these events are (especially Brum actually winning something), time's carried on ticking right through it, and life has eventually returned to normal. As disappointing as it may prove to the alarmists, historical precedence is firmly on the side of the world not ending. Or, as the legendary Corporal Jones put it: "DON'T PANIC!"

Any road, let's hear from those curiously uplifting and eminently likeable doom-mongers, the Arcade Fire.

In an ocean of noise
I first heard your voice
Ringing like a bell
As if I had a choice, oh well

Left in the morning
While you were fast asleep
Into an ocean of violence
A world of empty streets

You've got your reasons
And me I've got mine
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time

In an ocean of noise
I first heard your voice
Now who here among us
Still believes in choice?
Not I

No way of knowing
What any man will do
An ocean of violence
Between me and you

You've got your reasons
And me I've got mine
But all the reasons I gave
Were just lies to buy myself some time

Time to work it out
Cause time won't work it out
I'm gonna work it out
Cause time won't work it out for you
I'm gonna work it out