Music Notes

Light It Up

My ninth choice is Light It Up, a deep cut from OneRepublic's 2013 album Native. Full of suspiciously psychedelic turns of phrase, rambunctiously hypnotic riffing, and Ryan Tedder playing with an exaggerated vocal, it's unique among 1R's discography.

I had a lot of fun with this when I discovered it. On Genius, I argued back and forth with my pen-pal/editor, Max (@TossingDice) about how to write the bio for it. I wanted to explain the style and lyrics as being an inversion or parody of rowdy old rock music. Max was reluctant to accept what I wrote because he insisted there was no firsthand evidence of Light It Up being intended that way. I insisted on putting the idea forward anyway because I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about the song: that it's talking about getting high

We managed to agree on a bio which interpreted it the way I wanted… link here   I'm pleased with how it turned out between the two of us. Though there's no "proof" of my speculation, I know Ryan's sense of humor and his tendency to add little "Easter eggs" into his work. A family friendly parody of what, AC/DC? Deff Leppard? Led Zeppelin? Don't ask me because I couldn't care less. Anyway, I don't think it's too far off to guess that this was Ryan's intention for Light It Up.

You go ahead and draw your own conclusions…

Word count: 254.