Citizen Erased

"Citizen Erased"
Song by Muse from the album Origin of Symmetry
Released	17 June 2001
Recorded	2000/2001 at Real World Studio, Wiltshire
Genre	New prog, Progressive metal,
Length	7:19
Label	Mushroom Records
Writer	Matthew Bellamy
Composer	Matthew Bellamy
Producer	John Leckie
Origin of Symmetry track listing
"Plug In Baby" (5) "Citizen Erased" (6) "Micro Cuts" (7)

"Citizen Erased" is a song by English alternative rock band Muse from their second studio album Origin of Symmetry. The track is 7 minutes and 19 seconds long, making it the longest single track in Muse's discography, and second longest piece. The song has a synthetic ending that leads straight into the next track on the album, Micro Cuts. The song has long been a fan favourite, and in July 2007, a Muse fan site, Muselive.com, launched a campaign^[1] to get it into the singles charts through various download sources. The track managed to get to number 1 on the British download company 7digital's charts, but failed to make it into the official UK Top 40. It did however, chart at #122.

Matthew Bellamy has described the song thus: "It's an expression of what it feels like to be questioned. I spend more time than most people being asked about purpose, and it's a strange feeling. I don't really have the answers and I have to respond on the knowledge I have obtained so far, but the problem is that it gets printed, and something else has come along that's made you completely disagree with what you said"^[2].

The guitar parts were recorded with a six-string guitar with the sixth string tuned down to A (AADGBE). Live, the guitar part is played on a seven-string, with the tuning, low to high, AADDGBE^{[citation needed]}, the A strings an octave apart and the D strings at the same pitch.

This song regularly appeared at the top of the "choose the setlist" polls Muse ran for their 2010 European summer tour, along with fellow fan-favourite song "Bliss", also from the band's second album. Bellamy noted the song as a fan favourite during the 4 September concert at the LCCC in Manchester and joked the band's official website will be changed to citizenerased.com

On the 9 December 2010 in Sydney, Australia, Bellamy temporarily changed Citizen Erased to Citizen Arrested as a response to the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange's, arrest in Sweden regarding alleged sexual offences.

References

1. ^ Muselive.com, retrieved 2007-08-28
2. ^ Quote linked from MuseWiki, retrieved on 2007-08-28

External links

• Muse official website