Unsustainable (song)

Dom with the names Leaked

Muse song
Name	The 2nd Law: Unsustainable
Album/single	The 2nd Law (12)
Length	3:48
Alternative titles	Unsustainable
First live performance	16th October 2012
Latest live performance	15th October 2019
Recorded	2011-2012
Writer/composer	Matthew Bellamy
Producer	Muse

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Liquid State	<	The 2nd Law: Unsustainable	>	The 2nd Law: Isolated System

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The Resistance (2009)	<	The 2nd Law (2012)	>	Drones (2015)

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Description

Doom-drenched operas full of newsreel reports from the end of civilisation, rapping Terminators, trumpets inflating like lifeboats and Exorcist piano pulses tinkling goodbye to the globe. "It's the noise of humanity on a tiny planet in the middle of nothing," says Matt. "Hanging around space would be so peaceful and quiet and suddenly you come to this little blip that's f-----g chaos! I see it as drifting away from the planet and going into the peacefulness of what actually is gonna happen at the end of it all, which is nothingness." The song is a unique mix of classical music, progressive rock and dubstep, and was the first one to be heard off of The 2nd Law, being used on the album's official trailer.

When describing the album on Twitter, Matt was possibly referring to Unsustainable as "ambient rebellious dubstep".

Information

By error of Bellamy, Howard, Wolstenholme or Kirk, the name of the song was leaked by a photo on Twitter, until it was deleted. On 13th July 2012, Muse tweeted the same picture with Dom and the names leaked in a board, but with the working titles replaced by the new album tracking list. During the recording process, the working title was simply "Unsustainable".

On 4th June, 2012, Matt Tweeted the following text:

All natural and technological processes proceed in such a way that the availability of the remaining energy decreases. In all energy exchanges, if no energy enters or leaves an isolated system, the entropy of that system incre,cre,cre,cre,c,c,creases. Energy continuously flows from being concentrated, to becoming dispersed, spread out, wasted and useless. New energy cannot be created and high grade energy is being destroyed. An economy based on endless growth is...

With the missing word being "Unsustainable".

According to Matt he is 'just gonna go mental on the Whammy pedal' on this song.

Instrumentation

The piece starts with an orchestral section with choral emphasis, that gradually builds up to a climax. During a build up, a female voice reads the above text, at the end of which, a heavily effected, vocoder-style voice enters with the word 'Unsustainable'. A dubstep-style section follows, utilising heavy Whammy Pedal MIDI manipulation, combined with guitar techniques like pick scrapes and behind-the-nut picking, Kaoss Pad manipulations and other sounds, typical of Bellamy's guitar style, backed with a typical dubstep drum beat played on live drums, low-end-heavy bass, and fragmented repetitions of the word 'Unsustainable'.

After the first breakdown, the song goes into a heavier drum beat, still featuring Whammy guitar, but used a little more mildly, distorted bass, and a loop of the vocoder robot vocal. Strings re-enter, playing the intro melody. Matt's voice is momentarily featured.

The bridge goes full-on orchestral again, and the speech returns. The spoken word is narrated by Katie Razzall, a Channel 4 news reporter. The big drums, heard during the orchestral parts, are very big taiko drums, played by Dom. According to engineer Adrian Bushby, the band randomly found a large taiko drum sitting in the Lyndhurst Hall of Air Studios one evening, after they were used to record a sample library, and decided to use it for the song.

Live

Unsustainable used to be an opener during most of The 2nd Law Arena Tour but was also swapped Isolated System a few times. During the album's 2013 stadium tour (also known as The Unsustainable Tour, named after the song), it was featured after Stockholm Syndrome, as start of the encore. The robot, featured in the song, came to be known as "Charles The Robot".

As far as special FX, during the US leg of The 2nd Law Tour in 2013, the band started using CO2 cannons during both the intro and the bridge of the song. The cannons were later fitted to the ears of a 3-meter tall remote-controlled robot, which was used during the stadium tour, courtesy of "Cirque Bijou". The robot "walked" through the crowd before the show, and came to the stage on a riser when Unsustainable begun.

During the 2012 and 2013 performances, Muse came on stage during the middle of the intro, right before the beat drops.

Unsustainable returned for the first few shows of the Drones Tour in Asia, as the fourth song from the album, to be played during the tour. It was first performed in Shanghai, China on 21 September 2015. Fans hypothesized, that this was because of the fact, that, while playing in China, the band could not perform certain Drones-era songs, such as The Handler, Defector, United States of Eurasia and Uprising, and thus the band needed replacements for these songs. This is thought to be why both this song and Feeling Good were premiered in China. The song was played up until the last show before the 360 Tour, before being dropped again for a few years.

Unsustainable returned in 2018, for the Simulation Theory Promo Shows, first played on September 21st in Hamburg. The song was played practically every night during the Simulation Theory World Tour in 2019, however it was not included in the Simulation Theory Film.

More here

Music video

The song's music video, featuring the full song has been made downloadable on August 9^th, 2012, when buying the Deluxe Box Set of The 2nd Law on muse.mu. It has not, however, been released as an official single.

More here.

Lyrics

All natural and technological processes,

Proceed in such a way that the availability Of the remaining energy decreases. In all energy exchanges, if no energy Enters or leaves an isolated system, The entropy of that system increases. Energy continuously flows from being Concentrated to becoming dispersed, Spread out, wasted and useless. New energy cannot be created and high grade Energy is being destroyed. An economy based on endless growth is Unsustainable

Unsu... Unsustain unsustain unser Uns' uns' unsustainer unsustainer Unsu... Unsustain Unsustain Uns' uns' you're unsustainable

The fundamental laws of thermodynamics will Place fixed limits on technological innovation And human advancement. In an isolated system; the entropy Can only increase A species set on endless growth is Unsustainable

Unsu... Unsustain unsustain unser Uns' uns' unsustainer unsustainer Unsu... Unsustain Unsustain Uns' uns' you're unsustainable.

References

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