Taking into account Miley Cyrus’ unabashed love for one, Miss Britney Spears, perhaps there’s an intentional correlation between her latest single, “End of the World,” and Spears’ 2011 banger, “Till the World Ends.” But, in contrast to the latter, Cyrus’ first “official” single from Something Beautiful (making “Prelude” and “Something Beautiful” feel like chopped liver) isn’t so much a “party anthem” as a resigned lamentation delivered in the form of a raucous, neo-power ballad. Yet another reason the song is the soundtrack of the times. After all, how else could someone so diabolical make it into the office of the presidency twice were it not for sheer resignation on the part of those few even vaguely intelligent people still left?
While Cyrus and her ilk (read: liberal Hollywood) might have done their part to block the proverbial end of the world in the U.S. by voting against the Orange One, it wasn’t enough. So it is that Cyrus, in her signature twanging lilt, opens the track with a doleful and cresecendo-y “oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhh,” with a stadium-ready backing track adding to the generally Arcade Fire feel of the song (co-produced by Cyrus, Alec O’Hanley, Jonathan Rado, Molly Rankin and Shawn Everett). The video, once again co-directed by Cryus, Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter, takes place on the same stage setting as “Something Beautiful” (the vanity lights behind her being a key giveaway). In this instance, however, Cyrus has given her audience a hair/makeup and costume change. Including little flourishes of glitter sprinkled onto her hair.
After establishing her stage presence, she then delves into the tale of a lover (or, depending on who you ask, a family member) who “woke up, and told [her] that [they] wanted to cry/The sky was falling like a comet on the Fourth of July.” As for that latter rhyme, it’s clear Cyrus wrote it purely for just that: the rhyme. For how does the sky fall “like a comet on the Fourth of July” versus any other day of the year? Or maybe it’s meant to be a pointed dig at the total destruction of America currently in progress. And, if that’s the case, the couplet feels much more pointed. Either way, Cyrus’ key purpose is to remind the masses that tomorrow was never “promised” (even if it often is by campaigning politicians whose ostensible goal, beneath it all, actually is to make the world end), singing, “Baby you’ve been thinking ‘bout the future like it’s already yours,” further adding, “Show me how you’d hold me if tomorrow wasn’t coming for sure [this line overtly channeling the sentiments of Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile”]/Let’s pretend it’s not the end of the world.” Yes, it’s all very in keeping with the daily balm of denial that everyone has continued applying in a bid to ignore the reality that things aren’t going to get better, but worse. All mainly because no one has been willing to sacrifice the way of life that they’ve been conditioned to “need.” Least of all a celebrity like Cyrus.
So it is that, as Mark Fisher once pointed out by way of Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek, “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” And lately, Cyrus isn’t the only one (/pop singer) with the “end of the world” on her mind. Ariana Grande, too, recently reminded listeners of her own song from Eternal Sunshine titled “intro (end of the world)” with an extended version of it for the deluxe edition of the album. But, in that case, it refers to how worlds end every day via the severing of ties between people (or, say, the razing of neighborhoods that force once close-knit communities to be torn apart). A theme that Skeeter Davis woefully acknowledges in her own 1962 track called “The End of the World” (given a timely release just after the Cuban Missile Crisis). As for Grande, though, the theme of a romantic relationship ending/being the end of the world is manifested in the lyrics, “If it all ended tomorrow, would I be the one on your mind?” Thus, in most pop singers’ take on the end of the world (the abovementioned Lady G included), it mostly involves beseeching whoever their romantic interest is to love them with the intensity they never could while assuming the world would just go on “forever.”
Because of that still common assumption, most people live their life with caution, never doing the things they would if they knew/accepted that the end was nigh. So it is that Cyrus urges her loved one, “Ooh let’s go to Paris/I don’t care if we get lost in the scene/Paint the city like Picasso would’ve done in his dreams/Do all the things that we were way too terrified of before.” This declared as she writhes around (Madonna, “Like a Virgin”-style)/generally flexes in her couture near the drum set that dominates the backdrop of the video.
When she demands anew, “Show me how you’d hold me if tomorrow wasn’t coming for sure,” it again becomes apparent that people can only show the extent of what they feel if they know there’s a finite amount of time left. But, more and more, it’s obvious that there is. That an expiration date is looming large if things keep continuing as they are—which they probably will. And yet, the world has “ended” many times before. It’s just that, this time around, humans might actually go the way of the dinosaur when it happens. Even so, the world itself will go on. It’s just the narcissistic human’s perspective to bill it as “ending” solely because they’re no longer around.
As the video comes to a close, with Cyrus repeating her take on the legendary Henny Penny line, “The sky is falling” (with Cyrus adding, “Falling like a comet now”), a blinding white light shines in her face. Presumably the comet she’s been referring to throughout the song. She stares right at it not with sadness, so much as a mixture of fascination and acceptance. The end of the world, after all, has warned of itself for quite some time. How could it be any surprise at this juncture? That is, unless one pretends it’s not the end of the world until the eleventh hour (which is, of course, exactly what will happen).
[…] Miley Cyrus Releases a Song for the Times: “End of the World” […]