Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

I think the song "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" from the album Funeral by Arcade Fire is a good example of poetry in song lyrics. As a bit of context, the band created Funeral after a few members dealt with deaths in their families. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" is the first song on the album and like the following songs, it addresses love, family, and growing up in a poetic way. This song in particular tells the narrative of the speaker and his love interest to nostalgically describe the naiveté of young love.


The song begins with childish imagery:

And if the snow buries my, my neighborhood.
 /And if my parents are crying
 /Then I'll dig a tunnel from my window to yours,
 /Yeah, a tunnel from my window to yours.

The first verse is about the pains of growing up. It juxtaposes the painful coming of age experience of seeing a parent cry with the playful, childish image of a snow tunnel connecting two houses. The setting that the speaker goes on to describe is a sort of whimsical suburban place: a dream-like world in which he and his companion can escape from the harsh realities of adulthood and the difficulties of family life. The imagery, while simple in its childish nature, gives the song a nostalgic, longing mood.


Eventually, however, the couple must confront their past:

Then we tried to name our babies /But we forgot all the names that /The names we used to know. /But sometimes, we remember our bedrooms, /And our parents' bedrooms, /And the bedrooms of our friends.

I think the repetition of the word bedroom here emphasizes the way the images of his past haunt the speaker. The lyrics have a sort of stream of consciousness feel here: one memory leads to another. The choice of the word bedroom in itself is interesting: bedrooms are personal, emphasizing the close nature of the relationships that the speaker has abandoned.


The song repeats the verse:

You change all the lead /Sleeping in my head to gold /As the days grow dim /I hear you sing a golden hymn

This is where it's a song about love. The lead represents the dark thoughts that weigh on the speaker, including memories of his past. His companion in the song does some metaphorical alchemy to fill his mind with better thoughts. That said, the gold imagery also suggests he's idealizing his love interest.


Perrine's definition describes poetry as a way to communicate experience. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" uses the narrative of a young couple to communicate the pains of growing up, the beauty of love, but also the danger of isolation and ignoring the past.