Considering that we’re the most politically active campus in the nation and all, I would be remiss if I didn’t join the hoards of targeted Instagram stories and street corner crusaders that you dodge on your way to the metro, imploring you to vote in Tuesday’s midterm elections. British indie-rock band The 1975 are the latest big names to join the ever-growing list of celebrity activists– and they’re using their new music more than ever before as a platform to create meaningful social change.

The band is gearing up to release their highly-anticipated third album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, at the end of the month. “Love It If We Made It,” one of the first songs off of the record, was released in July 2018 and immediately garnered intense public scrutiny for its brutally honest observations about society’s shortcomings. The response to the song was overwhelmingly positive, with Rolling Stone calling it a “bright spot in these troubling times.”

Take a look at some of the lyrics to “Love It If We Made It” below and see for yourself how The 1975 are taking their own steps to change the world through music:

1. “Saying controversial things just for the hell of it”

It’s safe to say that modern politics have transformed into a competition of who can say the most controversial thing (ahem, I turn your attention to a certain president’s Twitter account). Whether these controversies are legitimate or simply a load of covfefe, we live in a world where turning, let’s say, a caravan of immigrants into a major terrorist threat via a few tweets takes the place of legitimate executive action.

2. “Selling melanin and then suffocate the black men

Start with misdemeanors and we’ll make a business out of them”

The implication behind these lyrics is pretty straightforward– it references the Black Lives Matter movement and the hundreds of African American men, women, and children who have suffered publicly at the mercy of police brutality and injustice. This also brings to light the massive inequality issue in the U.S. prison system– black Americans currently make up around 40% of total prison populations, and have been proven to be several times more likely to be jailed as opposed to a white person who commits the same crime.

3. “And we can find out the information

Access all the applications

That are hardening positions based on miscommunication”

This is a call-out directed at the media– and all of us brainwashed consumers who fall into their narrative– in the era of “fake news.” A main theme in A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is the ramifications of living in the age of the Internet; we live in a world where infinite information is available at our fingertips, yet it is a world where scandals such as 2016’s “Pizzagate” incident are making headlines. Why is it that we can’t figure out how to properly utilize what has simultaneously become our greatest asset and our greatest burden?

4. “Write it on a piece of stone

A beach of drowning three-year olds”

This heavy chunk of the second verse is in reference to Alan Kurdi, a 3-year old Syrian refugee whose photo made international headlines in 2015 when he was found dead on a beach in Turkey. His family had attempted to flee to Europe alongside the swarms of other migrants fleeing violence in Syria. This is a brutally real reference to tuck into the verse (especially coupled with the next line, which is ‘Rest in peace Lil Peep’), but completely necessary to call attention to the refugee crisis, which is still prominent despite the relative lack of media coverage.

5. “Fossil fueling,

Immigration,

Liberal kitsch,

Kneeling on a pitch”

This is definitely the climax of the song, the summation of “Love It If We Made It”’s entire social commentary. It encompasses many of the issues facing the world today– everything that the far right has labeled as the problems of “liberal crybabies.” The last line of the bridge serves as the band’s public show of support for the efforts of Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who made headlines over the past year by taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality against African Americans.

6. “I moved on her like a b****!”
Excited to be indicted

Unrequited house with seven pools

“Thank you Kanye, very cool!”

Curly-haired The 1975 frontman Matty Healy has always been extremely vocal in his criticism of Donald Trump, and didn’t hold back any of those feelings in this final verse, addressing the infamous Access Hollywood tape of the president making disturbing comments about his aggressive approach towards women. “Unrequited house with seven pools” is a reference to Donald Trump’s Seven Springs mansion located in upstate New York.

7. “Truth is only hearsay
Modernity has failed us”

If you, too, are feeling like modernity has failed us– you are not powerless. The song ends not with a message of hopelessness, but with one of promise. Take your anger to the polls and VOTE.

If you’re looking for some tunes that you can vote to, you can check out my November playlist here!!