Godspeed You Black Emperor - East Hastings 

This whole album needs to be played during a long long walk in the most desolate places you could ever imagine

I am in Milano, on the 6th floor of apartment building, watching how army vehicles patrols the streets and whole city is on lock-down, schools are closed, shops are closed, streets are empty, you can barely see anyone walking. This song makes it even more depressing

post-rock will never die,but you will.

This is how the apocalypse sounds.

This used to be my favorite album. It still is but it used to, too.

There is a woman whose voice graces the beginning of this track. I saw her twice. The first time was on East Hastings, right outside of the Army & Navy store on Hastings, possibly where she was recorded. The second time was while riding the bus up Robson from the west end. I'm some kid from Omaha, NE, USA, but was a graduate student at SFU then. Good times. I remember hearing her voice, then looking and her, and then recognizing. I cannot possibly express the feeling I have in my heart for the wonder of Vancouver during that time. That was almost 20 years ago.

I listened to this song on a really long late-night bicycle ride. There's loads of historical landmarks close to my house; five ruined castles, ancient burial mounds, prehistoric forts, abandoned medieval villages, and a Roman road that cuts perfectly straight through the countryside for endless miles. History has been a passion for me since the age of 5, but this time... it was something else. Going past the scattered remnants of long-gone cultures listening to this doomy track ironically made the past feel more alive and present that ever before. Riding down those same paths that have been tread by nameless masses over thousands of years in the dead of night brings out something primal and empathetic that has to be experienced with an understanding of just how catastrophic and horrifying that things like disease and war meant to our ancestors. To us, the Coronavirus means a temporary economic turndown with the odd pensioner not making it through; to them, the plague meant half your family dead within a week at the hands of some unseen force that only needs close proximity to spread. For us, war is just grainy WW2 footage; for them, war meant being sent off to a far-off land to kill or be killed, if you weren't one of the lucky ones to avoid conscription. But after all those countless apocalyptic ordeals, here we are now instantly communicating with each other across the world from the warmth of our homes. And one day we too will all be dead, and our houses too will become nothing more than a stump of old bricks and gravel, maybe the odd broken lighter and crushed can waiting under the dirt to be found by our 40x great-grandchildren. Let's enjoy our time while it's still ours to enjoy, because it can always become as dark and dangerous as it was in the past.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

Living in a third world country in a middle of a crisis where you can barely eat makes this song more terrifying than it is

"It started as rioting. But right from the beginning you knew this was different..."

Beginning at 8:20 reminds me of how riots start. Riots are really a form of a natural disaster. You have to have the right conditions for them to start. You really need a prolonged period of high heat, unemployment, and an undercurrent of political and social resentment. Then you just need a spark. It can be anything really, a police shooting, a hit-and-run, an unpopular court decision, but it starts out with grumbles and murmurs of a few, and it builds, more people say the same thing, louder, and it draws in more people until the voices turn to acts, and then the acts bring in more people to act, and once a breaking point is realized, when the crowd realizes the police can't arrest them all, you have a full blown riot.

I live near East Hastings in Vancouver, and this song perfectly captures the hopelessness and desperation of those lost souls wandering the streets, like ghosts. Some cry out for help, others are so far gone they don't want to be saved. People drive through the area, on their way to the glitzy nightclubs downtown, lock their car doors, and scoff at the poverty-stricken, the sick, the disabled. Others turn their heads, avoid eye contact, and pretend that they don't exist. Walking down that street is just heartbreaking. A frightening reminder of a world that each one of us could so easily find ourselves living in some day.

east Hastings is a part of Vancouver that is totally deprived,a magnet for the outcasts of the city,it has a big homeless population and is a hangout for drug addicts , mainly heroin users,a truly depressed and depressing area.

met the lady in the beginning of this. she'd sit in her chair on hastings street and preach all day.

no song on earth has ever elicited such a visceral reaction in me. i was driving to work on an overcast morning listening to this, and as the pace was picking up towards the end of the sad mafioso i was moving quickly on a four lane freeway with cars all around me. i felt such an intense panic and fear rise in me as the song quickened and quickened, like i was fleeing some beast. as it burst into the depths of drugs in tokyo i was entering the town where i worked. the fear and panic morphed into such a primeval terror as the song finished through black helicopter. the things i was seeing, gas stations, strip malls, streetlamps, storm sirens, substations, seemed sentient - baleful and leering. there was a letter sign out front of a church that read “pray for our city,” as social unrest was still in the news. seeing that message as the song reached peak madness in it’s final moments sent me over the edge. a pair of completely identical pickup trucks pulled up to an intersection i had stopped at - in hindsight it’s a pretty mundane occurrence but seeing double identical images in the state i was in was too much. i thought i was either going insane or reality was coming apart before my eyes. i had to pull over and stop for about 15 minutes after the song finally ended to regain a semblance of composure i’ve never had a song do that to me before. it shifted my entire perception of reality in real time. i still get the shudders thinking about it.

how can a human body contain this piece...it's so massively terrifying yet so beautiful

I can honestly say that this piece has managed to perfectly represent what it feels like to evolve from depression and anxiety into gradual paranoia and crisis. Listening to this in bed brought a cycle of emotions that I hadnt felt in quite some time. The beginning feels sad but still somewhat hopeful, fading into pure loneliness and desperation, eventually giving way to the anxiety and paranoia of uncertainty, which builds up more and more with the tempo of the song, until it all finally drops out and youre essentially left lost. Then those feelings of fear creep back in, lending itself to scary thoughts that dont seem to be your own. This was an incredible experience to listen to.

Next time a big thunder storm rolls through your area, put this on. It's the most apocalyptic thing I've ever experienced.

This is totally me when the car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel.

about a year ago I started listening to this and never forgot one comment here. to the person who lost their friend when they took their life to this song, I am sorry, I think about that often when I listen to this song.

The sad mafioso part is some of this band’s best work by far

The last part of this song made me so physically uncomfortable and I love it. The combination of the high pitched buzzing and the sounds either suddenly popping up right next to me or slowly approaching, like something's after me... God. The embodiment of dread. It's not often music's able to pull up emotion like this

This album is incredibly dark, depressing, but the most beautiful piece of music I've ever heard. Mind shredding horror to the most beautiful symphony. The atmosphere is just oozing with existential dread. Only I could dream of making music as authentic as this.

On the bus.. Watching all who drive past.. Happy, loved... Appreciated.. Here I am.. Alone.. I wish I was someone else... Somewhere else. Bought a pack of smokes.. Feeling empty again.. On the bus... Going no where..

Why are we drawn to this? This song is like the anthem to an ending. Like seeing the rise and fall of something. I’m writing this in early December of 2020. I’ve been having massive anxiety and depression recently. I feel alone but full of power. It’s as if there’s a part of me that wants to burn something while wanting to tend a garden. I’m a mess but I hope all of you out there are doing okay. 2020 has been a punch in the face to all of us. But I’m hanging in there. I want to outlive this pandemic so I can do the things I want to do in life before I take my step into the dark. This song is art and I won’t deny its emotional impact. It brings forth the dark colors of reality that we see in our daily lives. But I implore you to act not on this basis but on the light in your hearts. Be the flame in the darkness. Be your friend and spread your wings. You can do it. Keep going. Don’t give in until you’ve got nothing left in you. And let the things that fear you remind you of that.

i've added timecodes to all of my gybe videos. you can now skip to each movement in every track i have uploaded. i tried to make them as accurate as possible.

It’s stormy outside, it’s lockdown and I’m in my room at 1 am listening to this for the first time in my life. Holy shit.

The ending with good headphones is terrifying yet amazing

That reverb that sweeps in around 11:00 always gave me chills.

I’m going to play this when my area goes under quarantine for true pandemic immersion

The melodies in this song are some of the most simple yet effective motifs I have ever heard. A masterpiece in how dynamics can make a song as opposed to melodic or harmonic progression.

I watched my home town Salem Oregon wilt into such a divided, grey place. I remember walking across town in the the rain to my friends house, and I had this song playing. I eventually reached an area under a highway overpass. There were tents upon tents of homeless folks.. yelling, coughing, it reeked of piss. I just thought.. it wasn't like this 5/10 years ago.. but Salem isn't the only place where this is happening. Addiction, poverty and the way ex vets get treated.. and the way nobody seems to be doing anything to help.. it's gut wrenching. Since that day, the bitterness in the world has only become much more apparent.

This is my favourite intro to any song ever, a desperate cry for something better in the darkness, the message and field recording always strikes me We cant buy love and happiness, it comes from something more

It's one of those nights. The abyss is encroaching.

It's 00:20 AM and I'm listening to this for the first time. Hands down one of the greatest things I've ever heard, I'm speechless.

The whole Sad Mafioso segment is just so perfect, I kinda wish it was a separate song. That’s not to knock this song as a whole. It was one of the only songs to actually make me feel uncomfortable and paranoid (mainly the ending), which just goes to show the power behind the music and sounds here. This band has some serious skill.

Imagine wandering around aimlessly in East Hastings while listening to this masterpiece while you see all the hopelessness and all the lives that got destroyed by hard drugs. That's terrifying.

The build up of this track is legendary perfect to capture the emotion of the surprise and panic Jim was facing when he came out of the hospital saw the missing posters and the chase. You can feel it in the song as it picks up the most epic and legendary band ever .

I remember first hearing this in 28 Days Later, and just thought it was part of the OST. Then a couple years later my friend got me into GY!BE and I was like "holy shit I recognize this from somewhere".

That ending always has me cowering in fear. Feels like something sinister is approaching

10:30 riding to school on a bicycle at the age of 15 while listening to that part is still one of the more vivid memories I have

It's hard to pick a better song to go along with 28 Days Later (one of my favourite films) but this perfectly encapsulates the horror and dread you'd feel in an "empty" London Perfect song. I love it

I FINALLY FOUND IT, I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOR YEARS

After every election I come back to this track, because it makes me aware that it doesn't matter who gets in charge of my country. Nothing, absolutely nothing will change, and if it changes it is downhill, never up. Currently there's loads of things going on in my country and it's sad that I can't move out neither my family, we are stuck in here. And this song always comes to mind when watching the news, riding a bus packed with sad looking faces and so on. Anyway good luck to everyone in 2023!

I'm the only one who Remember the part of the movie "28 days later" when Jim was walking in a abandoned London? I love that movie for many reasons, the soundtrack is one of them. Is one of my favourite movies.

I am from Montréal, born and raised (80's) and... I never heard of Godspeed You! Black Emperor... before TODAY? What is this BLASPHEMY!? This band is LIFE!

the great thing about depression is that you find these gems at 2 am. that’s pretty much the only good thing though

Wow 2020 got a really good OST 10/10

jesus man, absolute masterpiece it amazes me how music can have so much emotion and power without vocals and lyrics

12:20 to the end of the song is straight up nightmare fuel.

The last segment takes me to outer space; alone up there in the stars, and finding something so great and profound that I know it was an unnatural occurrence, but having no understanding of why it was there, or who had made it so long ago, and then I hear a buzzing in my ears~

This song ends on a very Silent Hill-esq vibe.

Man, wish they had a whole song like the scary industrial soundscape at the end 😖

listening to this while waking on East Hastings, Vancouver. what a paranormal experience lol

This was the song that introduced me to Godspeed. I listened through their whole discography in short order, and in the decade since hardly a day has gone by that I haven't listened to at least one of their songs (usually several more). Glorious.

Came here from a video of an abandoned six flags park. Yeah, the song really does have that sort of abandoned feeling to it, I think.

I remember the first time I heard this song . . . this was my intro to GY!BE . . . . I was a student at UCLA, floundering through the last stages of a dying marriage . . . this music spoke directly to my soul. Hard to believe that was almost twenty years ago now! Brilliant ..... simply brilliant!

I finally got the opportunity to see GYBE perform this track about five years ago. I’d heard a number of live bootlegs from the early 2000s where, during the quiet bridge that is otherwise sung by the band on the studio recording, audience members loudly sang the melody along with the band. Figuring this was commonplace, when the track slowed to a halt, I proceeded to belt out, “YA DUH DUH DUH!!” and immediately, a thousand pairs of pissed off eyes turned towards me. One of the most embarrassing moments I’ve ever had at a show lol

In the UK right now a cool breeze has blown in after a two day heat wave. You have no idea how much I needed this tune, and this cool breeze.

thanks that was terrifyingly enjoyable

Great piece... outstanding intuition of Danny Boyle to use this in 28 Days Later... sets the scene perfectly

This is the perfect soundtrack for walking down East Hastings in Vancouver while stepping over homeless people and dodging crackheads. As a Canadian band I'm assuming that's the infamous street they are referring to.

This was the first song to ever make me cry. When you absorb yourself in it, this song is one the greatest things ever.

just listened to this with headphones on and all the lights out. that was SUPER creepy near the end. awesome

Man this track is just so powerful. For me it conjures images of the end of the world, wandering through an endless and desolate wasteland. A city devoid of life. Gray skies. A beam of light through the crack of a tattered curtain. Dusty pews in a church long since abandoned. A field of burned trees. Black smoke on a far off horizon. Coming to terms with an end you knew was coming.

life is a burden. music is a “taking a break.” this is a taking breath in break.

Love the hell out of the last bit. It's so ominous.

I don’t think I’ve ever been frightened by a song before.

See them live. That is all.

In a way, 28 Days Later kind of captured the modern state of the world with this song and Jim walking around the remains of London. As a result of Covid-19, entire cities have gone into lockdown, making them seem decolate. This pandemic may not be rage zombies going around killing everyone, but 28 Days Later did predict the loneliness in a lot of areas around the world.

The sad mafioso will always be my favourite track by Godspeed.

I'm reminded of this song every time I hear a crazy person rambling on East Hastings. This song captures the depressing poverty and addiction down there . The "large barge" sample at the end always bothers me. That voice sounds familiar for some reason.

If ever a song was meant to be played while watching a snowstorm, this is it

Music of the Lost Generation of Century 21.

Asla eskimeyecek bir parça, şaheser...

This randomly appeared in my recommended, I don’t know why it’s in there, but I’m glad that this is in there

Listening to this in 2020 during coronavirus pandemic. GET ON MY LEVEL!

After 2 hours of exploring music which was previosly unknown to me, I got from Sex Pistols to THIS. H-H-how??...

Imagine sleeping to this and the mosquito part at the end wakes you up

Post-rock feels like a derelict, dying American town a la Cairo, Illinois, or full-on post-apocalypse scenery. Really love the drone sound in the end of Nothing's Alrite in Our Life.

Extraordinaria pieza. Mas alla de la maravillosa incursion que tiene en el film "28 Days Later" es una pieza que se eleva por si misma. Una joya.

4:30 the start of infinite melancholy.

This is the music you listen to and you don’t care how weird odd and out of place others think you are. And, you look into others with a deeper understanding of how you don't understand them and realize you don't want to, nor, do you need to. It's enough to know, that they don't know how much you, yourself, truly know. Except for the mosquito at the end. He knows. More than any lowly human could possibly comprehend

Music for the Doomer generation right here.

An interesting time to find this song I must say

The voice at the beginning: in the 90’s I regularly would see exactly this lady on East Hastings. She would be seated in a fold out chair. I would usually stop to admire her, and enjoy the soundscape against her melodic bellows. I seem to remember her in a lavender/pink sunday-best outfit with white gloves. Was so elated when when I first discovered her voice sample preserved in this music piece; Makes it a Double Treasure.

procrastinating

The end is extremely fucking nigh

People in cold weather make weird music. Yeah! But I hate the cold.

I don't know if this song is good for me.

Listening to this while you walk through the DTES is quite the experience. It is a hell realm, the land of hungry ghosts, where all nourishment turns to ashes in the face of all-consuming desire. That said, Vancouver is entering a death spiral, and nowadays this misery permeates pretty much the entire downtown core.

The Sad Mafioso embodies a hopelessness I can’t explain but I understand all too well. There’s no one to turn to, no where to go, so all you can do is get up on your own two feet and run.

28 days later has the best soundtrack!

This right here, this is what made my body tremble, this piece of work right here is what caused me to actually have emotions during a listening. It's pure, it's emotional. It leaves for interpretation. All and all, truly amazing.

I was doing well, until I reached the final part, literally felt my heart sinking - wow.

i wrote a whole novel in my head to this track. one single frame, one track. bad ass...

Hello? -Jim 2002

It starts slowly, shambling but constantly upping the tempo until it's a full blown sprint. Just like the zombies

Heck yeah, this discribes the world we live in now. Great.

I really thought I wouldn't like this. I was so wrong