Hypersonic Missiles — Sam Fender
When I was in a particularly angst-ridden phase as a teenager, I became obsessed with the apocalypse. This included my dreams, which invariably included an incoming meteor, and thus lent an urgency to whatever was on my mind at the time. Because the world was ending tomorrow, everything was important, everything had meaning. This grandiose thinking was a regular part of the manic episodes that I didn’t yet know I was experiencing (and only partially flavored by Hollywood’s contemporaneous fervor for disaster flicks). But though the late ’90s featured a lot of my drama, they weren’t years that most of the world spent in contemplation of the literal end of humanity.
At the age of 18, when the Twin Towers fell, I had my first taste of what that could look and feel like. It was a dangerous thought to have, then as now, that maybe we deserved it. There’s a growing pile of evidence that we do.
To a person with a certain sort of anxiety, the world can always feel like it’s ending, but the last few years seem to have brought things to the precipice. Fascism is on the rise, but I’m safe in my suburb. The rain forest is burning, but I drive an electric car. I’m not the first to live with wool over my eyes. Sam Fender calls me out. He’s figured out at 23 something I made it well into my thirties before I understood. My good intentions, my earnest desires, they’re not worth a thing. I don’t just benefit from the system, I am the system too. I’m complicit in late capitalism, and I’m doing great, and it’s absolutely unfair. I can’t see any decent rhyme or reason for the life of you and me. That sentiment, the knowledge that my pleasure and prosperity has been a chance event, a roll of the weighted die, gains no sympathy from that type of person who abounds in wealthy suburbs. I’m told by my elders to ‘just be thankful.’ Instructions from my neighbor within the rat king. Then you’ll do the same, only the names change, honey. You can join their club if you’re born into money, It’s a high time for hypersonic missiles.
The seeds of the apocalypse that were planted 18 years ago are bearing fruit. This is a song about getting what we deserve. But hidden within: “I believe in what I’m feeling and I’m falling for you, This world is gonna end, but til then I’ll give you everything I have.” It’s the only thing left to grasp on to- a reminder that in a hopeless situation, a hopeless system, there is still the possibility that you can live out your life with love and equanimity and grace.
