Lyric Analysis: "Nothing Changes", MGMT

(My 'Biblical Wandering' will come out a bit later this week, so I figured I'd share this for a morning update. I have fallen a bit in love with MGMT's latest album, and wanted to dive deep into one of my favorite tracks on it.)

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This is what the gods must have been talking about

When they told me, "Nothing changes"

Falling through the Pleiades straight into a cloud

Wishing all the stars could save me

We enter straight upon the speaker in the midst of some cosmic battle - a rough descent from the starry heavens down towards the earth. He has encountered something - a “this” which we know nothing of so far - that gives him a revelatory moment, a new meaning to the phrase “nothing changes”.

A mention of “the gods” gives us a first hint of Greek mythology, strengthened further by the allusion to the Pleiades. In Greek folklore, the Pleiades were seven beautiful sisters, who were pursued ruthlessly by the hunter Orion. Zeus turned them into stars, far beyond Orion’s grasp. When Orion died, he too became a constellation, and the two became permanent fixtures in the star, Orion forever trailing after Pleiades in pursuit, always in motion, never changing.

And I feel strange, like I shouldn't be here

Let me know if you receive me

If I could change, then I wouldn't be here

Oh, nothing's gonna change, believe me

So don't lead me on

Does a man like Orion deserve to be immortalized? The speaker feels he “shouldn’t be here”, but hopes to be “received” by an unknown second party, as Orion forever wishes to be received, wishes for confirmation and acknowledgement. Wherever the speaker is, it seems he is as stuck in his fate as the constellations are. The speaker requests that the second party not play the part of Pleiades in “leading him on” in the endless, fruitless chase.

This is what the birds must have been squawking about

Right before the dream was ending

And maybe you'd have heard if you'd stopped fucking around

When it was time to stop pretending

The night sky of the first verse now gives way to ‘day’ imagery, waking from a “dream” into a mundane reality of birds “squawking”. The harshness in the third line indicates a rift between the speaker and second party, a jaded bitterness. One might imagine a married couple in a loveless household, no longer “pretending” to be in love.

That I could change and I wouldn't be here

Oh, when did all the gods deceive me?

I should change, I shouldn't be here

But nothing's gonna change, believe me

Believe me

The speaker’s partner, and perhaps the speaker was well, were only “pretending” that the speaker would be able to settle down and “change” his ways. Where is “here”, where the speaker finds himself stuck? Not a physical location, but that position of desiring, wanting, hunting; the fate of Orion. The yearning that brought these two together now keeps the speaker unsatisfied with the results of the pursuit - an unhappy partnership based on a fantasy. Like many mortals in the Greek myths, he’s been a victim of the gods’ cruel deceits.

Thrust the dagger into the night, valiant flailing

Sisyphean daily life, but endless straining

In quick succession, another night/day pair, after an instrumental interlude drifts through the cosmos. The “night” line shows us epic imagery of heroes, a hunter thrusting his dagger - but thrusting it “into the night”, without a clear enemy, “flailing” without a purpose. This is a heroic pose for the sake of it, a hollow repetition of a true hero. Quickly, the “day” comes, and with it the image of Sisyphus, another Greek mythological figure, cursed to eternally rolling a boulder up a hill to watch it roll down again. The hero’s pose is exposed as sheer vanity, “endless straining”.

Fortify the curtain walls, but nothing's storming

Push the boulder off to the side

A curtain wall is an image of both architecture - an outer wall which protects a building from harsh weather - and warfare - the outside wall of a castle or fortress that protects it from enemy troops. The double meaning deftly advances the twin themes of dramatic battle and domestic life. The speaker hardens his walls, battens down inside, in spite of there being no enemy “storming”.

With “push the boulder off to the side”, we might intuit a subtle shift from Greek mythos into Christian imagery. Sisyphus’s rock is now transformed into the stone sealing off Jesus’s tomb, which gets moved away on the third day of his death (Mark 16:4). In the context of this verse, it seems to indicate a hopeful turn: rather than continuing to “fortify the curtain walls”, playing defense against life, the speaker moves the boulder off his own grave, emerging to greet mortal life. The deathly, suffocating clinging to a heroic identity is replaced with a new chance at life among the common things of the world.

And this is what the gods must have been talking about

When they told me, "Nothing changes"

The speaker has spent the song witnessing his own life interacting with ancient tales, reflecting and repeating them, their mistakes, failures and victories.  Now, he acknowledges that, indeed, “nothing changes”. The cycle will repeat again; the constellations will rise once more and perform their dance.