That little blue light.

Most dudes probably jog while listening to Metallica. I myself find great physical motivation while listening to the band in their heyday, tearing through the speedfreak lunacy of "Motorbreath" or the raging "Disposable Heroes." It's the anger, or the aggressive musicianship, or those dang fine hooks, perhaps.

But a couple times this past year I've been pushing up the final uphill stretch of my run only to find, piping through the sweat-drenched foam of my headphones, the light orchestral touches that characterize the work of one Arcade Fire.

Specifically the final track from Funeral, the vulnerable "In the Backseat." It's about as far in the opposite direction of "Motorbreath" you can go, but it still manages to spur me up that hill. Arcade Fire wrote a wonderful melody to send this album off, with the tiny voice of Régine Chassagne vividly reminiscing on the serenity of being a child passenger in the family car.

The little piano arpeggio marks the rhythmic passing of things outside (I always watched telephone poles zip by my window) as she watches and takes solace in her current safety, despite knowing the mortality of her loved ones, as the "family tree [loses] all its leaves."

It is difficult to describe the mood of this song without hearing the melody and slow emotional build to the climax, but it's damn near a tear-jerker for those who aren't slaves to cynicism, and it just has a reassuring sound to it as I'm tiring out on that hill, in the overbearing heat of a summer afternoon in Texas.

It reminds me of the sharp, bright little cerulean light that I would watch from the backseat, the one I'd ask my parents to turn on even if the moment didn't call for high beams.