Bastille, a widely popular band known for their hit single “Pompeii” consistently bring together powerfully messaged, and lyrically and instrumentally beautiful songs through their use of pathos. In particular, one of their songs “Icarus” tells the story of the famous Roman mythological story “Daedalus and Icarus” which also teaches society about the mistakes we make and how they should learn from them and should be aware of every decision they make. This mythological story is about a father, Daedalus, and his son, Icarus, who attempted to escape an island by making wings made of feathers, held together by wax. While they flew away, Icarus flew too close to the sun and thus melted the wax and unfortunately ended his life shortly. From the instrumental and deep introduction, to the fast paced and upbeat drum in unison with the listener’s heartbeat, the song brings an overall powerful message about learning from past mistakes.
To establish their argument, it is important to know Bastille’s credibility. Bastille is a British band who specializes in alternative style music. Bastille is an alternative band because of their stray from popular, or “pop”, music, implementing lessons into all of their songs. They are composed of four members: Daniel Smith, the main singer, Kyle J Simmons, the guitarist, William Farquarson, the pianist, and Christopher Wood, the drummer. Smith, the main songwriter for the group, gained his education at Leeds University, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature. With that degree, Smith certainly knows how to implement metaphors, pathos, and arguments into each and every one of Bastille’s songs.
Beginning with the first ten seconds of the song, Bastille introduces “Icarus” with a singular voice who seems as though he is determined to find his true self based off of his mistakes. The singular up-roaring voice in the beginning, with little background instrumentals, crawls down the listener’s spine immediately. His chilling voice effectively uses pathos to get the audience to listen. This part truly affects the listener’s emotions because of the attention to the main singer. This would be the equivalent to a singular man’s life, but no singular one in particular. Following that, is a drum beating, like the way a human heart does. This causes the audience to feel like they are the man, Icarus, like in the song. The first words of the song are, “look who’s digging their own grave.” Right away, Bastille triggers the listener’s pathos. By saying this, the listener feels as though they should look at their life and question if what they are doing could cause not a death in a physical grave, but a death in a spiritual and overall well-being grave.
More simply, the opening lines scare the listener to reevaluate their life. Bastille continues to explain right after, “that is what they all say, what will you have left?” which references the mindset that people get when making a new decision on their own. They may not notice it, but others might; by making a new decision alone, people are vulnerable. They are vulnerable to mistakes; they are vulnerable to pain; they are vulnerable to judgment. However, other people may see the person’s mistake before they do, for “that is what they all say.” The continuous references to a death, or more appropriately, a poor change in lifestyle due to some burden, continue to chip away at the listener’s emotions.
To succumb this metaphorical death, Bastille metaphorically suggest that their audience fly away from their emotions through their wings. Once they escape this burden on their life, they, with the wings representing new beginnings, would be free forever. However, they did not read the warning label. People can only put in so much effort; birds can only fly so close to the sun. So, according to Bastille, the people as birds flew far too close to the sun. The people did not perform a test flight, their life “has only just begun.” Due to this new beginning, Bastille’s main audience is for younger people encountering a new chapter in their life. That chapter could be anything, but Bastille is trying to get their young audience to realize the importance of looking at all of the consequences and outcomes before encountering a new experience. “Icarus” isn’t targeted towards older people for they have more wisdom and knowledge than younger people. Not once in the song was Daedalus, Icarus’ father, mentioned. Icarus’ father knew the consequences of flying too close to the sun, and he knew what could happen if he abused his power of flight. So, in real life, older people understand the consequences of new opportunities and know how to handle them properly.
Furthermore, many people get into the mindset that nothing bad will ever happen to them, or the ‘you only live once’ mindset. When people obtain this mindset, they do crazy and things they would regret in the future, or would cause harm, such as flying too close to the sun. Next, Bastille tells the listeners that this is what it feels like to make a mistake, or “how it feels to take a fall.” The way Icarus is described as falling in the song is equivalent to when a person realizes they made a mistake. Back to pathos, Icarus is “falling towards an early grave”. This, keeping up with the bird metaphor, is the equivalent of the listener hitting rock bottom after a mistake.
Following the falling of Icarus, or the listener, is an upbeat hum, that is as if Icarus has learned from his mistake. This learning of the mistake causes the listener to think about mistakes they’ve made in their lives, both past and present. Thinking about mistakes can be very uncomfortable and saddening, but it must be done in order to learn from those mistakes to become a better person. Thinking, also causes the listener to learn how they potentially misused and or abused their power. It even causes the listener to be more cautious in the future.
Once the listener is done realizing who they truly are and what mistakes they have, Bastille suggests they would be “standing on the cliff face” or facing their fears. This “near death” experience such as nearly falling off a cliff causes the listener has finally come to their senses and are ready to admit what they have done wrong in the past and are ready to break free. So, the listener “puts up [their] armor when [they] leave” because they are “certain of who [they] want to be.” The armor representing protection and comfort is put on by the listener in order to protect and comfort the listener in their future endeavors. Once the listener establishes this protection, or armor, they would be ready to take one more “flight.” The song then turns the originally dreary fall into a joyous fall. “THIS IS HOW IT FEELS TO TAKE A FALL” is the joy the listener would receive once they truly accept the mistake they have and uses that in the future to protect them further.
Overall, Bastille beautifully argues Icarus being the equivalent of younger people embarking a new and exciting journey, making many mistakes along the way. However, it is important to understand the main fallacy behind the whole song. Bastille uses scare tactics to influence the listener to be extremely cautious with many decisions they make in life. Literally scaring the listeners to death by “flying towards an early grave”, causes them to not want to make any mistakes. However, as a human being, it is important to make mistakes. Without mistakes, there would be no room for improvement and growth. In fact, without mistakes, there would be little to no advancements in technology the human race has grown up with today.
From the dreary and emotionally stabbing introduction, the conclusion of the song includes an exhausted, but accomplished shout. The drowsiness of the conclusion shout shows that not only has the listener realized their mistakes in the past, they have put exhausting work into doing so. Just like the song ends very abruptly, so does the transition back to life right after a downfall. Confusing as their message may appear to be, it is quite simple. Everybody makes mistakes, just like Icarus flew too close to the sun. But, it is important to not let those mistakes kill one’s self, much like the fall and drowning killed Icarus. If someone were to let those mistakes kill them, then they would end their psychological life early, much like Icarus’ life only just began, only to end abruptly due to his mistake. But, had Icarus listened, or had the listener not let their mistakes affect them, then there would be no need to worry about the past.
Works Cited
Bastille. Icarus, 4 Mar. 2013.
“Bastille | The Official Bastille Website. Visit for the Latest Updates.” Bastille | The Official Bastille Website.
Siculus, Diodorus. Daedalus and Icarus. circa 45 B.C.E.