As someone who has written two screenplays based on school shootings (both rejected for being too sad, uh, no shit, life isn’t a Hallmark movie) and the horrific impact they have on the victims, I was thunderstruck when I listened to Lucia Cifarelli’s “Lights Out”. It is a melancholy industrial rock track that wrestles with and calls attention to the epidemic of school gun violence that’s plagued the US since Columbine. Story-driven and minimalist by design,“Lights Out’s” hamster wheel musical arrangement feeds right into LC’s hypnotic voice, punctuating the cyclical (and sick) nature of these terror attacks.
The deep bass and verses instantly set the tone of the school shooter’s mind: dark, malicious, and stuck. Moving into the “brighter” chorus, the POV switches to the victims and survivors. LC chillingly enkindles the redundant images of candlelight vigils, feckless politicians, and the thoughts and prayers they parrot before the media. As “Lights Out” concludes, you’re not sure who is more evil: the ones pulling the trigger or the ones doing nothing about it.
LC’s smooth late ’90s vocal style makes the bitter pill of what is accepted as the new normal a little easier to swallow, and her allusions to how pop culture might have some role in creating these monsters are worth some contemplation (even if you disagree).
I was a sophomore in HS on that awful day in April of 1999. All the rules changed for us. And there was a palpable dread that we all lost something too soon: innocence. In a time when “popular” music is largely spineless and shying away from challenging topics, Lucia Cifarelli’s “Lights Out” is the anti-graduation song the whole world needs to hear. It left me with chills, not from being scared but from the simple acknowledgment that the path we’ve been on for decades isn’t right.
Lucia is a special guest on the PRAISE THE LORDS TOUR that started May 27th in San Fran.
https://www.facebook.com/luciacifarelliofficial
https://www.lordsofacidofficial.com
