The song “Uprising” by the English band Muse was written by Matt Bellamy, produced by the band as a whole, and mixed by Spike Stent. It was released as part of the band’s album “The Resistance” on September 7, 2009. The song went on to do very well commercially, even attaining a double platinum in the US (over 2,000,000 copies sold).
I’m a big fan of this song because it fits a lot of different moods for me; I can listen to it when I’m happy, sad, or even when I just want to get pumped up for something. In this post we are going to look at and discuss three musical elements of this song: lyrics, timbre, and meter.
Lyrics:
(I’ve put a link to the song’s lyrics below to avoid cluttering the post)
https://genius.com/Muse-uprising-lyrics
The first element that we’re going to discuss is the lyrics of the song and what message they are trying to send. If taken literally, the song’s lyrics along with its title Uprising clearly depict a story of rising up against an oppressive government. I personally think that the message that they are trying to send with the song is to me to be free and do what you feel like you should do without worrying about what others think.
Timbre:
For those of you who may not have encountered this term before, timbre is the quality/characteristics of a piece of music’s sound. For example, to me the overall tone of “Uprising” has a mysterious synthetic quality reminiscent of the kind of music you’d find in a sci-fi movie. I’m not the only one who thinks this too, in his BBC review, Chris Jones likened the song to the popular sci-fi show Dr. Who.
Meter:
A piece of music’s meter is the way that beats are organized in a song. Most songs occur in 4/4 time (4 quarter notes per measure); but if you look at its sheet music “Uprising” is in 12/8 time (12 eighth notes per measure). It can be easy to confuse them though because 12/8 time can have a feel like 4/4 if you count it as 4 triplets of eighth notes (3 eighth notes per 1 beat with 4 beats in a measure).
Sources:
Explorations in Music 
I agree that “Uprising” is a great song that fits a lot of moods. It definitely has kind of a sci-fi vibe going for it. When I first listened to it, I thought it was in 4/4 time but after counting the beats it didn’t quite line up. It feels like it could be in 4/4 but like you said it’s actually 12/8. It is also very clear to see that the lyrics is talking about rising up against government.
If we look at the tone when can see how the song gets its sci-fi feeling. Looking at the opening song, the instrument playing almost sounds alien. It gives the song a very sci-fi feel. The instrument is very hi-pitched with an unnatural sound to them. However the drums playing keeps a steady beat to help ground the song.
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Hello, This song is pretty unique, I love the beat. The guitar chords are so intriguing, it makes you excited and super pumped I agree. I love the lyrics, I’m all bout doing what you feel and not what others think. You should always be you now matter how people may feel because at the end of the day you have to live with you.
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