NEW WORLD
Crime the City Solution Lyrics

The song ‘New World’ by Crime and the City Solution is a powerful and unsettling commentary on violence, aggression, and the destructive human tendencies that often unravel in the face of perceived threats or fears. The opening verse sees the family taking the car and purchasing machine guns, underscoring a sense of paranoia and violence. The repetition and emphasis on ‘another one’s down’ and ‘shoot him now’ reveal a mindless aggression and killing, highlighting the casual and easy acceptance of violence. The chorus ‘there’ll be blue skies and sunshine and a white picket fence around my home…oh, you’re so wrong’ reinforces the idea that such violence is not a solution to fear or perceived threats, but rather an illusion that keeps us from confronting the underlying problems.

The second verse of ‘New World’ sees a continuation of this theme, as happy songs are sung amidst the carnage, and the clean-up is delayed. The ‘bad gate’ being smashed in by the good cop creates a sense that the people enforcing order are also complicit in the violence, and the tenement slum is full of losers who continue to suffer. The repeated refrain ‘the New World is free, the New World is King, if the New World protects you, you’ll never win’ is a powerful reminder that the new world is not necessarily a better world, but one where those in power create their own reality and those outside it are the ones who suffer. The use of ‘golden harps’ and ‘paradise’ highlights the sense that a deeper spiritual and moral dimension is missing in this new world.