Speech given in 2012 by Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina.

The opening (although technically second) track of Absolution.

The jarring, explosive piano chords that define much of the song’s melody evoke feelings of dread and – as the singer puts it – a sense of urgency.

This helps to elevate the song’s lyrics, which speak of a need to make a cataclysmic change. The change could be a personal one, or a more global one, but whichever it is, it would herald the end of the world as we know it, and pull us through to a new level of existence.

The song is impressively heavy-sounding, even without the presence of electric or distorted guitars throughout much of it (although does feature a distorted bass) and contains – arguably – that signature Muse sound.

The B-side to the Time Is Running Out single, “The Groove” is one of Muse’s most funky and bass-driven tracks to date.

Origin of Symmetry is Muse’s second studio album. The LP wasn’t officially released in the US until 2005 because Maverick Records (their stateside label) wanted the band to remove Matt’s trademark falsetto, but the band refused.

A towering 51-minute exploration of progressive rock with heavy bass riffs, dark lyrics, and a unified sound, Origin of Symmetry is objectively regarded by many Muse fans as the band’s best album.

The development of the album came about during the band’s extensive touring in promotion of Showbiz, with some of the material written and performed whilst on the road.

The name and theme of the album are inspired by the book Hyperspace by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. The book takes on the topic of Supersymmetry—The theory explaining the origin of our world and what happened when the universe was born— and discusses how a future book about the discovery of supersymmetry should be entitled “The Origin of Symmetry”, due to its implications in physics, in reference to the impact Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species had on biology.

Matt Bellamy explains the origins of the name in an interview:

The name of the album, Origin of Symmetry is from a book about the geometry of the universe and how it’s all in beautiful balance, a perfect thing in ten dimensions. It explains all the mysterious forces we invented religions around.

He continues to explain the relation of this idea to the existence of God:

everyone’s been writing about the origin of life so now they’ll start looking at the origin of symmetry; there’s a certain amount of stability in the universe and to find out where it originates from would be to find out if God exists.

In a 2001 interview, Matthew Bellamy stated that the artwork is

a collection of the work of 14 artists who’ve all been given that same title, so even though each piece is in a radically different style, you get a sense of there being some form of continuity through different people’s perceptions of the same theme.

The band released an anniversary version of the album, Origin Of Symmetry: XX Anniversary RemiXX on June 18th, 2021. In revisiting the album what they found was the original mixes on the singles, like “Plug In Baby” and “Bliss”, were pretty good so they were the hardest ones to improve. It was the deeper album tracks like “Micro Cuts” where they were able to make massive breakthroughs.

This is directed at what would be God, asking why we should go forth and multiply? What’s the point?

Matt Bellamy

Muse covers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse’s famous jazz/musical standard, also notably covered by Nina Simone and Michael Bublé.

As a single, it is a Double A-Side with Hyper Music with two B-Sides: a cover of “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” and “Shine”.