Cage the Elephant: Reflecting a Reality

The year was 2008, China were hosting the Olympic Games, Tony Stark had just became Iron Man, and the world is experiencing a global economic crisis that later became known as “The Great Recession”. In fact, it was the second year of that devastating event, and during that time, millions of people were left broke, unemployed, and without food and shelter. These desperate times led many to take desperate measure to pay the bills, feed their mouths, and survive.

Somewhere in Kentucky, a 24-years-old young man called Matt Shultz, who later became the lead singer of the Grammy winning band “Cage the Elephant”, was working in construction as a plumber, he had a coworker who was a drug dealer, who had one thing to say when Matt asked him why would he get involved in such activity: “There’s no rest for the wicked”, possibly a reference to the Bible (Isaiah 48:22 “There’s no peace,” says the Lord, “For the wicked”) it inspired the hit single “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” in Cage the Elephant’s debut album in 2008.

“There’s no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees,

I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed, there ain’t nothing in this world is free.

“I can’t slow down, I can’t hold back, though you know, I wish I could,

There’s no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good.”

The song follows a lonesome man, portrayed by Matt himself in the music video, as he encounters three “wicked” characters who are practicing desperate measures to survive. The first encounter is with a young prostitute described as “pretty little thing” and later “sweet young thing”, she stops Matt as he was walking down the street to offer her services, which he declines, he asks her “Why you do this to yourself?” and she responds with the chorus of the song.

The second character Matt encounters is a more violent one and it happens 15 minutes later in the story, it’s a street robber who sneaks up from behind and holds him at gunpoint. The robber doesn’t seem to be willing to hurt him, as he says “Give me all you got, I want your money not your life” but he makes it clear that he won’t hesitate to pull the trigger if faced with resistance, adding “If you try to make a move, I won’t think twice”. Matt is more interested in knowing why the robber choose the life of crime than his own money, immediately asking “You can have my cash but first I gotta ask: What makes you want to live this kind of life?”, the robber repeats the same answer as the young woman, indicating that they’re on the same boat.

Matt doesn’t meet the third and final character in person, instead, he goes home to rest after a long day, he sits down, turns on the TV and sees something he “almost couldn’t comprehend” on the news, a preacher man who’s in handcuffs for stealing money from the church. It’s hard to watch for him, how could a man of faith be in the same level of the young prostitute and the street robber, but then he comes to the realization that in these desperate times, everyone will do whatever it takes to survive, everyone is capable of wickedness.

Like millions around the world, I was introduced to “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” through the cinematic intro of the 2009 game “Borderlands”, which is set in a violent wasteland that now that I think about it, sounds very similar to the real world. There’s a lot of things that make it such a great modern rock song, and I want to talk about one specific reason.

The song came out in Summer 2008, during the global financial crisis that led to a rapid increase in unemployment, homelessness and poverty. It wasn’t something new for the songwriter Matt Shultz, who grew up in a poor environment. 2008 was also a turning point for people born between the mid-80’s and mid-90’s, known as Millennials, who, like Matt, just finished school and started looking for jobs, and like Matt’s co-worker, they realized that one job isn’t enough anymore, they became “The Job-Hopping Generation”, as several studies have found that half of Millennials have a side job to make ends meet.

The financial crisis, or “The Great Recession” had an impact on pop culture as well. In cinema, Slumdog Millionaire, a movie about an 18 years old who goes from poverty to winning “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”, it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning 8 including Best Picture. On television, Breaking Bad, a show about a chemistry teacher who becomes a drug dealer to provide for his family, it won two out of four Emmy Awards. That brings us to music, the stage was set for everyone to create something that reflects reality, and while it didn’t receive any awards or nominations, I think the song “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” from Cage the Elephant’s debut album is one of the best musical acts to accomplish that.

The album itself has a defiant attitude towards the world, starting with the song “In One Ear”, an assault against the band’s critics at the time. Immediately after it comes “James Brown”, which carries the name of the Godfather of Soul and it could be interpreted as criticism against copycats, it leads us to the third track of the album, “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”. The rest of the album goes on to explore different topics like war, free will and relationships, which are all important topics to explore, but none feels as urgent as the subject of this song.

It’s set in a world where money is scarce, and people, specially in the lower and working class, are unable to secure basic things like food and shelter, which are life’s essentials and human rights, not a luxury. No one deserves to live without food and shelter just because they can’t afford them. This hard life often forces people to do immoral things, not for greed, not for thrill, but simply for survival. The song echoes another song with much similar themes, “C.R.E.A.M” or “Cash Rules Everything Around Me” by Wu-Tang Clan, which also came out during a financial crisis in the early 90’s, in the second verse, rapper Inspectah Deck says:

“A man with a dream with plans to make cream,

Which fails, I went to jail at the age of fifteen,

A young Buck selling drugs and such, who never had much,

Trying to get a clutch at what I could not touch."

When Matt, the protagonist of the story, comes to the realization upon watching the preacher’s arrest on the news, he repeats the same words as the young prostitute and the street robber, but he uses plural pronouns to include us, the listeners, and himself into this harsh reality, saying at the final seconds of the song:

“There is no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees,

We got bills to pay, we got mouths to feed, there ain’t nothing in this world is free,

We can’t slow down, we can’t hold back, though you know, we wish we could,

There ain’t no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good.”

With love,

Your digital companion.