Countless hours of my life I have spent arguing with my sister about song lyrics. This being the only thing we ever fought over we have made it into something major rather than just friendly competition. Being on a long car ride we didn't have internet to look up these lyrics we were pestering each other with. You can imagine us listening to the same song and driving our father to the brink of insanity whilst we argue on syllables coming from artists we didn’t even know the names of. Be “A Highway to Hell or My Way to Hell”.

Most of the time were either both wrong or both right. Play that funky music was a common miscommunication between us, was it “play that funky music whiteboy” or was it “play that funky music right boy”. We were both right but we didn't know that so we fought anyway. The worst of these fights was the song “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons. The first time that I heard this song was on the radio during a car ride to Market Basket.
Instantly I grabbed my pen as I heard the loud inhale of Dan Reynolds going into a verse. Frantically scrambling to write down my first impressions of the song and the rough lyrics I would use against my sister in a court of justice.

“I'm waking up to ash and dust
I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust
I'm breathing in the chemicals

I'm breaking in, shaping up, then checking out on the prison bus
This is it, the apocalypse
Whoa”

These first lines echo in your soul, slowly churning. They make me feel a strong emotion of loneliness and the emptiness of “This is it”. We both agreed on these lines and thought that they were amazing.

“I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones
Enough to make my system go
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Welcome to the new age, to the new age
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive
Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh, whoa, oh, oh, oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive

This chorus is the evidence I used against my sister. The sheer boldness of this part of the song makes it feel like there was nothing, but now there is nothing else but this song. “Enough to make my systems blow”, this line is said with raspiness and was heard by me as “Enough to make my systems go” an easy mistake and not as big as my sisters.

This song was literally named after this line “I’m radioactive, radioactive” but of course my sister had to argue that I was incorrect, “I’m ready to rock you, ready to rock you”. Honorable Judge Dad residing the final verdict was… ME as the champion of this battle but the war wasn’t over I fear this war will never end.

This song has always had me on the edge of my seat and finally made me branch out and purchase an album of my own. Night Visions opened my eyes with “Amsterdam”, “Demons” and most of all “Radioactive”. Lyrics don’t matter. It’s what you think they are that does.