Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)

Album: Reflektor (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song references Eurydice, who in Ancient Greek legend was the wife of the gifted musician Orpheus. The lyrics about despair, isolation and death were inspired by the story of the mythological lover's attempt to retrieve Eurydice from the underworld after she died.
  • Frontman Win Butler told The Sun that a particular inspiration was Marcel Camus' 1959 Brazilian movie about the star crossed lovers, Black Orpheus. "Regine (Chassagne, wife and bandmate) and I watched the film Black Orpheus, which is super relevant because it's based in Brazil during carnival and is the oldest pre Romeo and Juliet love story there is."

    "So it got to me," he added. "I obsess about ideas. I don't know any other way to write. I try to find five different ways to look at an idea."
  • Reflektor's cover art is an image of Auguste Rodin's sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice. This is one of several songs on the album that were inspired by Greek mythology and the structure of tragedy.

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