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Do you like Reapers?  

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  1. 1. Do you like Reapers?

    • Yes!!
      346
    • Maybe
      18
    • Nope
      11
    • Electronically arousing
      323


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Added this to MuseWiki, if anyone is interested in reading.

 

Reapers is perhaps one of the most progressive songs in Muse's catalog, featuring prominent use of modulation, demanding guitar work and an uncharacteristically improvised solo.

 

Guitar feedback and pounding drums introduce the song before Bellamy lunges into a tapped guitar solo with an unstable tonal center. Eventually rooting in D minor, the verse establishes an urgent air of desperation, as Bellamy sings of domestic conflict and drone warfare. The lyrics make reference to the "AGM-114 Hellfire" air-to-surface missile commonly used in aerial combat vehicles. The verse follows the Andalusian cadence twice, a chord progression also found in Citizen Erased and Resistance, with Wolstenholme's bass walking across the ninth of each chord.

 

Bellamy and Wolstenholme play in unison for the primary guitar riff, which uses the D minor pentatonic scale and is backed by a "Drones!" chant. The riff climbs chromatically to establish a new tonal centre in the G Mixolydian mode, providing a strong chorus for Bellamy's declaration that he is ready to become a reaper. Before long, the stop-start chugging guitars give way to another tapping solo, and eventually the verse and chorus repeat again.

 

Following the second chorus, Howard drums in unison with Bellamy as he plays the primary riff. Wolstenholme continues this motif as Bellamy launches into a guitar solo, filled with pitch-shifting effects, tapping and chromatic melodies. The riff ascends as the key changes to E minor, eventually climbing through the fourth and fifth to revisit the chorus one last time.

 

As the final chorus ends, riffs give way to arpeggiated chords as the song builds to a dramatic climax, at which point the tempo suddenly drops and Bellamy howls over a chromatic bassline played by Wolstenholme. As the intensity builds, Bellamy doubles the bassline on his guitar as air raid sirens sound and Wolstenholme repeatedly screams "CONTROL!" into the microphone.

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I think in other concerts he didn't sing in falsetto (instead in hero voice or whatever) over the riff, but I might be wrong

 

He definitely did it at Manchester, pretty sure he did it for at least a couple of others as well.

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Been trying to work out some more of the lyrics. Still really unsure about the choruses, they seem to change gig-to-gig in some places, but I'm pretty sure I've got the verses mostly right:

 

Home, it's becoming a killing field

There's a crosshair locked on my heart

With no recourse

And there's no one behind the wheel

Hellfire, you're wiping me out

Killed by...

 

Drones!

(Killed by) Drones!

 

War, war just moved up a gear

I don't think I can handle the truth

I'm just a pawn

And we're all expendable

It's a debt to be electronically erased

By your...

 

Drones!

(Killed by) Drones!

 

Obviously, feel free to correct where you think I'm wrong though.

Edited by Jobby
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Chorus seems to be mixed around with

 

"Human mind control, our bodies on the shore"

"We will rise on the sea our bodies on the shore"

"To become reapers and horsemen now I am ready to know"

"We've got to see our heaven (?) But all we've got is (?)"

 

The "human mind control" part is interchanged with "we will rise in the sea" at least that's what I hear

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Chorus seems to be mixed around with

 

"Human mind control, our bodies on the shore"

"We will rise on the sea our bodies on the shore"

"To become reapers and horsemen now I am ready to know"

"We've got to see our heaven (?) But all we've got is (?)"

 

I keep hearing "the world is on its side", and "now I am radicalized".

Edited by mskatie
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