The Killer's single "Tranquilize" begins with the steady plodding of "quiet desperation." Soon, Brandon Flowers' vocals interject themselves staccato-like over the plodding background. In verse two, Flowers is joined by Lou Reed and the song transitions to a duet between an anxious immature voice (Flowers) and a solider, weathered voice (Reed). This connection is expanded by the music video, which positions Flowers and Reed across from each other as if in a duel.The most apparent duel within the story of "Tranqulize" is that of sailing and drowning. The first verse ends with "In the park we could go walking/Drown in the dark or we could go sailing/On the sea." "On the sea" rings out purely but esoterically from Flowers like a wistful resignation, conjuring the image of a sailboat gliding freely and happily which is threatened by that of a gaping throat filling with dark water, lost forever. The next few verses sing of desperation and fear which press down on the ragged plodding of the bass like lead, and fittingly as the chorus remarks that "Silently reflection turns my world to stone." This reflection incessently creeps up like the grimy fingers of "quiet desperation;" there is no escape ("tonight this engine's failing") and no escapism ("sipping on something sweet").
In the bridge, the formless monster of oppression is clarified. The song traces the monster's origin to the first murder, "when Abel looked up at Cain/We began the weeping and wailing." Indeed, this helpless upward gaze is the gaze of desperation and pain. The bridge continues to reveal how the monster is sustained by "A hurried high from pestilence, pills, and pride..." This "hurried high" is enough to satisfy the base longings of men; "It's a shame, we could have gone sailing." Here, the image of sailing reappears, an image of complete freedom which is the antithesis of enslaving hurried highs.
The song ends with Reed struggling to declare hope in the midst of the mess, the drowning in mud that characterizes the human condition. In spite of all of humanity's failures, Reed maintains that "We're the ones who still believe." It is this blind faith that allows him to trust in a "lifeless book of hope" and even dream of a better world, a world where violence is finally "tranquilized."
Often, hoping in Christ and in his resurrection seems to rest on nothing but blind faith. Yet, it is precisely in those times that hope is the most powerful; for it is then that a dream might be your only lifeline, and not just any dream but the dream of shalom. This is the dream, the vision, toward which Christians press: that violence and drowning would finally be tranquilized not in the sense of an impermanent solution but in the sense of affecting change with minimal damage. The sin in the world will be tranquilized, but the world will not be destroyed, and as the sons of God are revealed the world will reawaken pure and free (Romans 8).
