Arcade Fire achieved heights that bands characterized as “indie” don’t normally even approach on their 2010 album The Suburbs. Universally acclaimed and even Grammy-recognized, the record soars to one of its finest moments on the rousing anthem “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”
Sung by multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne, the song helps bring what’s essentially a concept album to a rousing close. Here’s the story behind this classic and how it all fits into the bigger picture of The Suburbs.
Suburban Drama
Two albums into a career that already found them positioned as one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the world, Arcade Fire gathered inspiration for their third album from a photo. It was sent to lead singer Win Butler by an old friend, and it showed the friend and his daughter at a location near where Butler and his brother Will, who was also in Arcade Fire at the time, grew up in Houston.
That sparked Butler to reflect on his time growing up in the suburbs, how nostalgic memories intermingled with the scars everyone seems to amass when growing up to create a torrent of conflicting feelings. Even though Chassagne, who’s married to Win Butler, spent her youth in Canada, she found her feelings about the suburbs hewed closely to what the others in the band harbored, as she explained in an interview with Clash:
“For example, the feeling when you’re very young that suburbs are kind of nice because there’s a little park to go to and it’s safe, but then you grow up and as a teenager it seems kind of dead and you feel like you want to get out of there. The image of the suburbs is not very glamorous and it’s not something people are very passionate about, but there are still dramatic stories that happen there. Everyone has their own little suburb story.”
Chassagne also borrowed on some other influences to help create “Sprawl II.” (Although the entire band is credited with writing all the songs on The Suburbs, as lead singer of this track, it’s most likely she did the bulk of the writing.) The phrase “Mountains Beyond Mountains” was used in the title of a non-fiction book by Tracy Kidder about a doctor known for his work in, among other places, Haiti.
The author, in turn, had formulated that title from a Haitian proverb that translates to “Beyond every mountain, there is another mountain.” Chassagne’s parents were Haitian, so there’s that connection as well. In addition, the phrase fits well into a song about kids trying to make their way out of the suburbs against all odds.
The Meaning of “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
The song essentially acts as the closing track on The Suburbs, since only a brief reprise of the title track follows it. In that respect, it sends the album out on a joyous note from a musical standpoint, with its pounding beat and swirling keyboards. But Chassagne’s lyrics, even though they’re sung in high-pitched shouts, don’t quite paint that same optimistic picture.
The narrator is constrained by the small-minded community in which she lives: They heard me singing and they told me to stop / Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock. But she sees a way out when she looks into the distance: ‘Cause on the surface, the city lights shine / They’re calling at me, “Come and find your kind.”
The only problem is getting there past all the obstacles in front of her: Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond space / And there’s no end in sight. Chassagne also makes a sobering observation that the promise of the city might be no more than an illusion: Sometimes, I wonder if the world’s so small / That we can never get away from the sprawl.
The Suburbs shocked many when it took home the prestigious Grammy for Album of the Year at the 2011 ceremonies. Thanks to exhilarating songs like “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” Arcade Fire truly hit the big time. And it’s likely that all those suburbanites watching that night who tried to hold them back as kids beamed with pride and said, “I knew them when.”
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