In the age of online dating and Tinder, modern affection has become increasingly rationalized. No longer constrained by the numbers in our phonebook, we have access to more possible dates in a day than preceding generations could have in a lifetime. The idea that you could meet anyone, anywhere, is an invitation for the rationalist to contemplate anything less than the perfect match as suboptimal. Technology has incentivized us to look past the girl next door.
In this respect, “Tunnels” is a fresh blast of nostalgia. Replete with a storybook view of love and genuine youthful invincibility, the song hearkens back to a time of refreshing simplicity. Amidst the constant pressures—inside Cambridge and elsewhere—to consider the vast possibilities of the future, “Tunnels” offers nonchalance. Like much of Arcade Fire’s music—“Wake Up” is much the same way—the song evokes images of unstructured wanderlust; the soft cadence an invitation to explore, not worry. The aloof nature of the song’s protagonists—“We tried to name our babies/But we forgot all the names”—makes the future seem far, far away.
There’s a certain allure to this magic of indifference—“Since there’s no one else around/We let our hair grow long/And forget all we used to know,” Win Butler sings at one point. The idea that love is just a climb out the chimney away, “in the middle, in the middle of the town” conjures up images of a simpler time.
The love in “Tunnels” is not defined by its economic optimality. It’s all-consuming (“Then we think of our parents/Well what ever happened to them?!”) It overcomes all obstacles (“And if the snow buries my, my neighborhood … Then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours.”) It’s forever.