Street Lights is a ballad that cuts through with a melancholic tinge infused with just the right kind of waning hope to keep you engrossed. The song builds with a purposeful progression, launching into a mature and pronounced arrangement around the one minute mark as Ryan Jacobs sings “In the end it all falls down”. The lyrics, the more you let yourself hear them, start to paint a picture that’s as glum and morose as one can expect. There’s an inevitability to the entire track, a kind of tired acceptance that despite and in spite of everything around us, we are all going to pass away. That resigned outlook forms the bedrock of the melancholy behind Street Lights.
It’s the perfect ballad to put on when you find yourself wallowing in the throes of a low mood. It sinks you further, but almost gives you so much of the negative that it leads to the apathy expressed in the chorus. Despite the subject matter being as dark as they come, the overarching arrangement has a celebratory effect that allows you to be pulled and uplifted from these pits.