What’s Wrong with ‘Wrong’?

Catch the new single from Depeche Mode’s new album ‘Sounds of the Universe’ (performed live in Berlin). After the lyrics below are my reflections on them.

Wrong

I was born with the wrong sign
In the wrong house
With the wrong ascendancy
I took the wrong road
That led to the wrong tendencies
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time
For the wrong reason and the wrong rhyme
On the wrong day of the wrong week
I used the wrong method with the wrong technique
Wrong
Wrong

There’s something wrong with me chemically
Something wrong with me inherently
The wrong mix in the wrong genes
I reached the wrong ends by the wrong means
It puts the wrong plan
In the wrong hands
With the wrong theory for the wrong man
The wrong eyes on the wrong prize
The wrong questions with the wrong replies
Wrong
Wrong

I was marching to the wrong drum
With the wrong scum
Pissing out the wrong energy
Using all the wrong lines
And the wrong signs
With the wrong intensity
I was on the wrong page of the wrong book
With the wrong rendition of the wrong hook
Made the wrong move, every wrong night
With the wrong tune played till it sounded right yah
Wrong
Wrong

Too long
Wrong

(First stanza repeats)

Comments on Lyrics

The song seems to sing of typical DM-styled existential angst and indignation. Though it blames ‘unchosen’ genes and even the stars under which one was born (but these are karmic results too), it also admitted that one ‘took the wrong road that led to the wrong tendencies’. However, tendencies are but morphing habitual patterns, that one can reshape. One can always endeavour to take the right path. Unless by deliberate choice, one is never at the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’. One is instead at the right place and right time due to karmic forces at play – even when it seems all wrong. It is one’s onus then, to make the best of one’s circumstances – to make them truly right, especially when one can’t simply walk away.

Whether one believes in fatalism or not, one still ought to do one’s best. If not, to spend the rest of one’s life blaming everything else is surely not going to being one closer to happiness; it would be sheer pointless wallowing in misery, which makes the situation more miserable. With the Buddha-nature within, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with one inherently, other than the refusal to believe in one’s Buddha-nature and one’s ability to actualise it.

There’s no need to entrust one’s life with any wrong person or plan, and one should simply withdraw best one can to get on the right path. Playing ‘the wrong tune’… ;till it sounded right’ seems like a good idea, but it must be truly right, not just sounding right, or it would be a bigger mistake with worse delusions. ‘Wrong, wrong’… much ‘too long’ it is, to see everything else wrong, other than oneself. A circular loop of self-destruction indeed…. as the last stanza of pointing fingers everywhere else loops back to the first stanza, trapped in a negative rebirth. Don’t even keep blaming oneself – just change oneself to make it right, and change the world thereafter. Nothing is really wrong – other than not doing this. Below is the disturbing official music video of the song.

Comments on Video

What can we do, other than struggle against an ill destiny?
What can we do, other than accept the destiny after struggle?
What can we do, other than struggle to better this destiny after?

2 thoughts on “What’s Wrong with ‘Wrong’?

  1. This song does seem to have an existential angst to it. However, existentialism puts the emphasis on personal responsibility and while he eludes to that in some of the lyrics, he clearly places blame on external forces.

    I never watched the “official video” and interpreted this song more universally, as if he was singing about “humanity and world systems” collectively.

    For example, this lyric:

    It puts the wrong plan
    In the wrong hands
    With the wrong theory for the wrong man
    The wrong lies, on the wrong vibes (should be wrong eyes on the wrong prize btw)
    The wrong questions with the wrong replies

    …reminds me of the last 8 years with George W. Bush. and everything we are learning about the Iraq war and Wallsteet. I can’t help but feel helpless most of the time and think that we all need to WAKE UP and never go back to sleep.

  2. Hi Kelly, Thanks for the lyrics correction! (Now amended… We should always see the official website for lyrics!)

    ‘…reminds me of the last 8 years with George W. Bush’…. Hmmmm… Did W stand for the title of the song? 😮

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