‘Silent Running’ – Gorillaz

Marc writes:

Humankind has been on a journey around light:

We sat around a fire and told stories as communities and clans;
We moved indoors and read stories around the fireplace, or listened to them on the radio;
The radio got replaced by the television and we continued to have less responsibility in telling the story, though we were all still pointing in the same direction;

Nowadays, the TV is still in the corner of the living room and the seats still point towards it, and it ever continues to burn out a light and tell stories but whilst it tells its stories, I tune it out and disappear into the light of the screen in my hand. It tells stories, paints pictures and shows things to me. I experience them alone, along with millions of other people, and occasionally I send them to other people on social media so that they too can enjoy them alone.

And before I know it, time has disappeared, the film has ended and it’s time for bed.

I’ve done nothing, paid attention to nothing important, and my fingers have silently run over the screen.

The stories I’ve been told have been trying to tell me what I’m missing out on, but they haven’t brought me lasting joy. And yet I keep disappearing into the machine-assisted nowhere.

How could we reclaim the stories that matter, gathering back around a community light rather than our personal pocket lights?

How can I get closer to stories that matter, rather than imperfect pictures promoting and promising perfection?

Well, I got so lost here
Machine-assisted, I disappeared
Into a dream, you don’t wanna hear
How I got caught up in nowhere again (Oh, oh)

It feels like I’ve been silent runnin’ (Silent runnin’)
Through the infinite pages, I scroll out
Searchin’ for a new world
That waits on the sunrise
I’m silent runnin’

Find out more about Gorillaz at https://www.gorillaz.com/