"Candles in the Sun" is the sort pseudo-political love for all people track that just shouldn't work. It's easy to hear Miguel's warm intonation of "they say we're all created equal, but that ain't how we treat each other," as cloying of the highest kind. Then something brilliant happens around the point in the video, which was released today, that a blank contemplative stare consumes Miguel's face. The slow drum and electronic effects that have been languishing up until this point, ring out like a gun shot in the night and embolden the singer as he tells the tale of "white collar war crime, money gettin' spent."By starting the chorus with the sly-nod to the Notorious B.I.G. "kick in the door, carry the .44," Miguel is acknowledging what is soon to come in the chorus, "heroes often get shot." We so rarely pay attention to the world that is around us, that it take something as a loud and vicious as a gunshot to wake us up out of our slumber. The world Miguel sings of is not a far-cry from the world of Chaplin's Great Dictator, we "think too much and feel too little." Peace becomes a thing of the past and any notion of real love is lost to the history books. "Candles in the Sun" is Miguel's attempt to find that peace and love, to find any sense of God in this wicked world we walk through. "May we all live long, may we all be brave," he sings near the song's conclusion. We have lost the way, but there's always a bright flame in the night to call us back when we stray from the path. If there is indeed a God, he/she/they would want nothing more than for us to know "we're all created equal."
"Candles in the Sun"
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