How It Ends is the last track on Finneas’ debut album Optimism, a body of work full of satire, transpiring the life of a rising star and a young adult in a flawed society.
From the start, with have an opposition between machine and human being, with the sound of a heartbeat and of a machinerie which both extend throughout the song. This can be used as metaphor of the mesmerizing of human beings with the industries’ rush (amplified with the catchy rhythm) and its repercussions on the human condition.
The lyrics “go sell your shares, if you so worried, if life so short, what’s your hurry?” ties this human condition to the music industry, and its role in capitalizing art and pushing it more as a product to be sold than an expression of the human spirit. Finneas continues this denunciation: “where can we finally put down our pens”, rejecting on the working conditions of the industry and on an artist’s duty to speak up about the flaws of their society.
Furthermore, the lyrics “if you wish to see the world, don’t take the highway” warn the youth to look for reality, and to not stay imprisoned in a privilege, to not fly to close to the sun. The ending of How It Ends, consisting of the word “friend” repeated and fading with the organ, shows the state of a hard working individual, at the end of the industrial trance, looking for company, after all is vanished.
Photo source: http://www.independent.co.uk
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