It was played a half step down from the original key, which greatly improved the vocal outcome, and this performance is one of the strong factors that makes the Zepp gig what it is today. Zepp Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, August 2013 : The legendary return of the song in this already mythical gig 13 years after its first performance was significantly better than the previous one, both vocally and instrumentally. The song was played on the original key, and Matt's voice seems to have resented this, as his vocal performance was a little weak, although it could have also been from exhaustion from the gig. Reading Festival, Little Johnny's Farm, UK, August 2000 : Apparently it was presented as Spectrum back then. This song stands out for being an extreme rarity in live setlists, having being played live only 5 times to date (if I'm not mistaken). The word futurism itself refers to an artistic movement from the early 20th century that made emphasis on technology, speed and violence, but it also refers to a philosophic point of view that thinks the meaning of life is to be found by looking after and into the future rather than paying attention to the present or the past. Ignorance pulls Apostasy and apathy still rules Yeah, you know it's cool Just suck and see A future turn us into silent gods And I won't miss you at all Grounded Boxed in Like the evil in your veins Grounded Boxed in I am stuck with you Fate can't decide Alignment of the planets in your hands Come on, crush our plans Just suck and see A future that won't let you disagree And I won't miss you. The band themselves haven't really disclosed anything particularily clear about the song lyrics' meaning, but most fan interpretations think it refers to some kind of description of a dystopian futuristic society. The chorus of the song is particularily challenging vocal-wise because of the sudden changes between high chest voice and high falsetto.įuturism's lyrics are somewhat cryptic. Musically, Futurism is one of the many bass-driven songs amongst the Muse repertoire, built over a continuo bass line that sets the tempo, rhythm and harmony of the song, bearing strong resemblance with the one from Hysteria, which, according to Matt, was actually inspired by Futurism. Apparently, it had a bunch of working titles before finally settling for Futurism: Spectrum, Tesseract, Electro Empire and Apolitical. Futurism is the bonus track from the Japanese edition of Origin of Symmetry, and the third track from the Dead Star/In Your World single.