'Neon Bible' Essentials: Anthems From Arcade Fire's New Album

"This album has even more threads that hold the songs together," says co-writer Regine Chassagne. "But I'd rather people figure it out on their own. They can do it. They're intelligent." Here's a few of the threads: Neon Bible is filled with images of mirrors and a debased culture that reflects us. Taken as a whole, the album suggests that Americans bear moral responsibility not only for our wars but for our pop stars. A primer on what's inside the Neon Bible:

BLACK MIRROR [Listen]
The album's opener states its themes: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall/Show me where them bombs will fall."

THE WELL AND THE LIGHTHOUSE [Listen]
Adapted from a French folk tale, "The Wolf and the Fox." Chassagne introduced Win Butler to French-language children's literature, and he thought it'd be interesting to write a sequence of songs based on these stories with explicit morals. This is the only one that made the record: A wolf jumps into a well, thinking that the reflected moon is actually a treasure-trove of silver.

NEON BIBLE [Listen]
There's also a novel by John Kennedy Toole (author of A Confederacy of Dunces) called The Neon Bible, but the band didn't know about it when they named the record. "We picked it because it's a rich image and there's a lot of interpretations to it," says Will Butler. "Take the poison of your age," the lyrics say, implying that our toxin is the worship of bright flickering lights.

(ANTICHRIST TELEVISION BLUES) [Listen]
The band also refers to the song as "Joe Simpson," after the father of Jessica Simpson, the song's "bird in a cage." The song's narrator proclaims his Christianity but wants to "hold a mirror up to the world so they can see themselves inside my little girl."

WINDOWSILL [Listen]
"Songs have meaning," Chassagne says. "You have to find that meaning and work toward it. 'Windowsill' started as a quiet song, but I was working on it, and added horns and everything. When we mastered it, I said, 'What happened? This song is so bombastic.' But you work from the lyrics and use that to inspire you to create sounds."