track sounds great and morose as ever, looking forward to the new cd

uh, what? this song is amazing; almost brings tears to my eyes

sure, it’s preachy, but why is that bad?

powerful. the beginning feels even bigger than anything on funeral. but the song itself never goes beyond funeral’s best. still the organ makes you shivver a bit.

You’re an idiot. You wouldn’t know good music if it hit you upside the head.

this track just gives me shivers. it’s so passionate, powerfull, emotional. it’s lyrics – as far as i gather them – just don’t say anything, but the whole build-up feels so uplifting it’s almost unbelieveable. i have this track on repeat since this afternoon. i just don’t get bored of it.

seriously… are you smoking crack? This track is stunning. It laid to rest all of my fears about Neon Bible. I’m very, very, excited now.

preachy is one of the things we love about Arcade Fire — the fact that they attempt to write songs that aren’t just about relationships, or angst, or any of the other meaningless garble we get from many of the bands on the upper end of the billboard charts is fantastic!

Don’t worry. Rolling stone has a run of rubbishing music that they then later praise 5 years down the line…I think this track is excellent and I am very much looking forward to the Neon Bible, the true fans will have their say Rolling Stone…

Sorry Elizabeth but I couldn’t disagree with you more. This song may be preachy, but it’s to its own benefit. Intervention is powerfully tragic and incredibly touching, to the point where it makes me want to go out and try and fix the wrongs in this world. Maybe you’ve forgotten what good music sounds like and I wouldn’t blame you with all the filth the gets the limelight these days. If only more groups made music like The Arcade Fire.

alright track except the chorus ripps off a wolf parade song which they already sound like and have toured with. Hope the rest of the album is better.

Nice to know that someone agrees with href=”http://www.bacchusrock.c om”>me. The song seems to be lacking something. Hopefully the album will deliver. And yes the Arcade Fire must be seen live to appreciate.

right on guys i’m fucking disappointed in that review- long live the arcade fire

Never heard of Arcade Fire before they performed “Intervention” on SNL. Brilliant song; cool band. Will definitely buy their music- past, present, and future.

My body tenses up, I come close to tears, but just end up with goosebumps and shivers. I haven’t been moved like this by a song in years. We’re talking grammy here.

i cried when i listened to it

Everyone has different tastes. You can’t rubbish someone cos theirs is different to yours. That goes for both sides of this debate. Live with it.

This review is piss. Coming from magazine that ripped Led Zeppelin of all bands… Get a clue… The album is fantastic and the buzz around this band is amazing. When you have Bowie and the boys from U2 showing up at your gigs your in the midst of something big. Who are RS to say a band ‘may now rest on the wrong side of that line.’ Hypocrites!

Based on an interview in The AV Club it seems like this song is about Jessica Simpson’s father’s move from Baptist preacher to being her manager. Far from being preachy, it seems to go back and forth between disgusted and sympathetic.

If Arcade Fire continues to produce music like this I will consider them among the all time great bands (Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, etc). Like others here, I was deeply moved to tears. The song is anti-war and it reaches out to those who have lost the lives of their loved ones in war (esp the Iraq War). While politicians speak about God and church, even claiming that God “supports” them, they turn the canon/cannon on those serving their country when the call for sacrifice comes.

I am 48 and have never really paid a lot of attention to music, but I work with people half my age so get my music exposure by accident. I kept hearing bits of Intervention enough to say, “hey what is that song about?” It just pulled me in. So I went online and bought it and now can’t listen to it enough. Tears, shivvers, anger,sadness — all those things happen to me from this song. It’s got something that really hits me in some beautiful tragic way.

Why is it considered ‘not OK’ to preach about certain things? There are very few bands in today’s music who wire relevant and ‘engaged’ lyrics. It is one’s opinion, after all, and listeners can choose to agree or disagree. Why not practice the basic principle of western ‘democracy’ in music too? I find this song to be a wonderful refreshment and would dare to compare this kind of lyrics-writing to the one of Roger Waters. If everyone listened to ‘Comfortably Numb’ at least once, with at least some understanding, this continent would be a much mentally healthier place to live. I say Bravo! to Arcade Fire and would love to see them continue make thought-provoking songs after they start bathing in cash from all the album sales. Cheers.

I saw them on SNL and was hooked. When I found the (I think) official lyrics on the website (arcadefire-net) my interpretation was not that the band was preaching at all. I’m not a “honk if you hate Bush” anti-war activist but what I heard had to do with Bush and Iraq.

“The king’s taken back the throne” ~ Bush

“The useless seed is sown” ~ Bush/US starts the war

“Working for the church while your family dies” ~ Bush believing he’s “doing God’s work” while YOUR family – the average citizen – dies (are his daughters, nieces, nephews in the war now?).

“When they say they’re cutting off the phone, I tell ‘em you’re not home” ~ the soldiers aren’t getting the funding they need (subpar safety gear, etc.)- Congress/Bush says they’re cutting back on funding (too bad your bullet proof vest we chose is the bargain buy) so the Generals tell the soldiers they can’t reach Bush.

And the message on the guitar (later smashed – I’m not a big fan of that, but maybe it made sense here) SAK VID PA KANPE – supposedly means an empty sack doesn’t stand COULD mean if we (citizens of the US)refuse to fund the war and if other nations won’t fund it – IT CAN’T STAND.

Another blogger mentioned “little sister” could mean Canada.

What do you think?

A couple of additions. The original review mentioned “preachy” and I interpreted that as preaching religion, but it could mean preaching a message like anti-war. In that context I can better understand the “preachy” comment.

Also, the name of the track is “Intervention” meaning to stop something – stopping the course of events, like the war.

So in that context maybe it is preachy, but the song is still inspiring and obviously thought provoking.

You must have been listening to the wrong song this is the best song they’ve ever written. It makes me shiver and is amazing live.

Dog’s bollocks

Hairy eyeball

Bling-bling

lyrics aside, this song kicks ass. whoever wrote this review should lose their job

Agree with last comment, the person who wrote this shoudnt be allowed to review music. They clearly dont know what there talkin about. Great tune, great album although not quite as good as funeral

Ever heard of Bob Dylan? U2? John Lennon? Intervention, along with American Idiot are the only two songs that have encapsulate the despair of the world during the Bush regime. The fussy fear of preachiness is so pathetic, really antithetical to any kind of rock sensibility or lively aesthetic. Somebody find Jann Wenner and get him to fire these lukewarm fussy face critics who treat rock and roll like a serving of escargot. Become a damn food writer or something. Get out of Rock.

I almost can’t believe the writer is concerned about a rock song being preachy. What should artists do, tow the party line? And this from a magazine that consistently puts anything “Bush” on the “Against Us” side of the spectrum. Did Rolling Stone turn on U2 in the eighties when they “preached” against apartheid? No, because no reasonable person would argue that it is okay to violently put down an anti-segregationist movement. And, I would argue, because being anti-apartheid was fashionable, whereas being anti-Bush is not necessarily so. But even an intimation that this song is anti-Bush or anti-war means, what, that they crossed some sort of line? The song is transcendent, whatever it’s about, and what it is about is by no means clear. I myself haven’t heard the writer claim that he or she or they meant it as being anti-anything; but even if they have said it explicitly and I am simply out of the loop, who cares? Country songwriters get away with grossly distasteful lyrics like “Man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July”, and here we are talking about how Arcade Fire may be on the wrong side of some imaginary line because they wrote a song the lyrics of which can at face value only loosely be interpreted as being “anti-Gulf War II” or “anti-Bush”. Wake up, reviewer: you do not occupy the moral highground by standing dead center between Toby Keith and the Dixie Chicks and claiming that they are BOTH wrong. You just appear a person of weaker convictions than they.

I witnessed my first performance of AF on the TV (Glastonbury). The band just drew me in because the sound, the set up and the overall delivery of their music was/is unique.
As others have stated Intervention is an emotional song and does lead the listener to hear it over and over again. A triumph for modern music.

Beautiful, powerful song that also speaks the truth of a terrible situation for Soldiers and victims of war alike. Amazing

Congratulations Rolling Stone, you just made me post my first ever comment on any internet site ever. Anyone who can only describe this track using the terms weak and preachy is an idiot – which you clearly are.
Probably the most impressive piece of music I’ve heard this century.