Portions for Foxes: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

This series isn't all obscurities. I'm not deliberately being a hipster or anything. And I'm ending the year, and the series, with a song I bet anyone reading this already knows. (And likes, I hope: though tastes always do differ.)

To end the Portions For Foxes series, I'm turning to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and throwing the knob all the way to Zero, a great song from 2009 and their It's Blitz! record.

I can't tell you why this song sounds so positive and energizing when the lyrics are so dark:

You're a zero
What's your name?
No one's gonna ask you
Better find out where they want you to go

It's not mocking. It's not even "they call you a zero; are you gonna stand for that?" It's pure and straightforward - maybe we should take it as starting from zero, from the base, with nothing behind you and nothing expected.

There's a whole new year ahead of all of us, full of whatever. It starts from zero. Go for it.