Post #2: "Handlebars" by Flobot (2008)

    

"Handlebars" is a song about corruption and power.  The music video itself has a powerful effect on the listener's perspective because it is presented in a graphic novel, cartoonish style which causes the audience to immediately distance themselves from the world that exists in the video.  However, one of the underlying themes in the song is that this immediate distancing of human beings from the issues that are presented in the lyrics is actually extremely dangerous because corruption can sneak up on us without us even realizing it.  The second theme is that, even if an idea or action begins in innocence, just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should do it.
      Both the lyrics and musical style of the song "Handlebars" begin whimsically, creating a false sense of security and well-being.  The proposed actions in the song also start out very innocent and childlike, such as a pair of friends riding their bikes "with no handlebars."  The author then claims increasingly more challenging and impossible things that he can do, and we notice that these things begin to involve more and more people.  By the end of the song, both the tone and volume have become harsh to echo the lyrics' blunt message: depravity begins with small steps, but can soon overcome persons, nations, and even the world if no one has the vision to see where those steps are leading and the courage to voice their suspicions. 
     Both in my own mind, and partly because of several allusions in the lyrics and video images, the song reminds me of Nazism in that no one suspected or saw the evil behind the little steps that began the movement, but by the time it became obvious to the world, the movement was too strong to be stopped easily.  So many truly frightening things have started in this way, and the only way we can avoid this dangerous trap is to be constantly aware of, and to constructively question, our surroundings and the changing tides within the world we live in. 
     This song reminded me of both Bob Dylan's "It's Alright Ma" and Green Day's "American Idiot" because, in all three, the common theme is that "group think" and blind obedience without questioning authority is extremely dangerous, not only to ourselves, but to all other humans.  Another theme that was pointed out to me by a dear friend was and power's power to corrupt (as she said, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely").  If you notice, as soon as our narrator accomplishes one thing, he moves right on to another.  The innocent act of learning to ride his bike "with no handlebars" came first, then the pursuit of things that are not necessarily inherently bad: money, fame, etc.  However, even that was not enough and our narrator moved on to larger tasks which allow him to exert control over larger masses of people:
I can hand out a million vaccinations
Or let'em all die in exasperation
Have'em all healed of their lacerations
Have'em all killed by assassination
I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don't like'em and
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command
I can guide a missile by satellite...
and I can hit a target through a telescope...
and I can end the planet in a holocaust.
 In the end, he was not able to find a stopping point, but continued on until he annihilated the human race.  I really liked how the song did not end there, but instead returned to the hauntingly innocent refrain of "I can ride my bike with no handlebars...no handlebars...no handlebars" to again drive home the point that corruption can start small, and no single human being is exempt from this possibility: ignoring that possibility is as dangerous (and even more so!) as willingly seeking out corruption and ill-used power.

Sources:
http://www.lyricsmania.com/handlebars_lyrics_flobots_the.html
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1458921998#!/permalink.php?story_fbid=2007560956198&id=1458921998&cmntid=2007573796519