Song of the Day: The Dismemberment Plan - Superpowers

The Dismemberment Plan have always been a band that had great amounts of empathy towards its subjects. Songs like 'Tonight We Mean It', 'The Things That Matter', and 'Gyroscope' presented their relatable subjects of isolation, loneliness, rejection, living as a young adult and general humanity with a sense of self-awareness that is modest and honest. It's that sense of songwriting that would grant them their immense cult status among their loyal fan base and set them apart from other peers.

Yet it's the cut 'Superpowers' from their 2001 album (their last so far) Change that exemplifies the band's empathy to new heavenly extremes and showcases their late-career songwriting complexity. With a dreamy synth and persistent drum beat that never relents but never overbears, the song is accompanied by The D-Plan's signature funky bass lines and melodic guitar lines. But the most revealing are Travis Morrison's quiet sweet vocals proclaiming various contrasting experiences that continue for the rest of the song:

"I have seized with the ice cold rage of a lover betrayed,half a million miles away.

I have cried so hard for hours and not known why, I never do."

But the most telling of these lyrics comes from the chorus resigning that "I guess you could call it superpowers/But no one is going to save the world with what I've got", revealing a self-awareness of the limitations of empathy, a proposed 'superpower' by many but that doesn't quite get anything accomplished beyond its acknowledgement.

Perhaps 'Superpowers' signals a maturity of self-awareness for The Dismemberment Plan that acknowledges a futile attempt of empathy for all humankind: one that clearly couldn't be handled by the narrator of the song, and with descriptions of 'an indigo light from silvery towers surrounded by rocks and stones as far as the eye can see', it wouldn't be far off to speculate that the only one who would is God himself. Luckily, we can only relate.