Butterflies and Hurricanes

"Butterflies and Hurricanes" is a song by Muse from their third album, Absolution, and was the last single released from the album. It was one of two songs recorded with a string section, both of which were recorded, along with an early version of "Apocalypse Please", during the initial stages of recording. The song is notable for its Rachmaninoff-esque piano interlude.

The song concerns itself with the so called butterfly effect of chaos theory, describing how even tiny changes in present conditions, like a butterfly wing's flap, can cause big differences in future.

The song was also dedicated to Dominic Howard's father, who died shortly after the band's performance at Glastonbury Festival.

Composition and lyrics

Matthew Bellamy declared about that song: "It's about hope, about trying to find the strength to get through any given situation. I was trying to find a classical type of piano style that would be heavy and work with bass and drums. It had that sort of mechanical paradiddle thing all the way through, and then it breaks down into this kind of romantic, flowing weird bit in the middle".

Parts of the song existed at least as early as 2000.[2] Bellamy had suggested a song featuring the band and an orchestra over a "constant paradiddle" to Dom, but Butterflies & Hurricanes really took shape when Matt spent a few hours fiddling around on Steinway in a hotel they were staying in: "I was just alone in this piano room for hours and hours and hours... I found myself playing this paradiddle, that goes [imitates paradiddle] like that over and over again. And I started playing that on just two notes, constantly playing it, over and over again until I got to a point where extra notes were sort of finding their way in there, d'you know what I mean? And it ended up building up to the point where I was playing five-note chords with each hand and playing these massive chords on the piano and it was sounding really fucking heavy, d'you know what I mean? And a chord structure started to come out of that, and I was thinking, "This could be something"".

Recording

The single version features guitar rather than piano aside from the piano interlude, and excludes a voice saying "oh" at 1:21. The radio edit takes the single version and omits the piano interlude and vocal harmonies entirely. The single version features slightly heightened vocal harmonies compared to the album recording.

There are several versions of "Butterflies and Hurricanes". For the original studio recording, introduction, verse and choruses were played on keyboard. The band later reworked the song for guitar during the Absolution tour, including an extended guitar solo before the piano interlude (and a bass filler to cover Matt Bellamy's transition from guitar to keyboard). This version was also performed live during the Black Holes and Revelations tour. The single version contains both guitar and keyboard, but loses the guitar solo, and the interlude is shorter, reducing the song from 5:01 to 4:48. The vinyl single includes a full-length version with guitars. Finally, the radio edit of the single goes further by omitting the entire piano interlude, bringing the song down to 4:10.

Music video

The promotional video comprises footage of "Butterflies and Hurricanes" being played at different venues along the Absolution tour with colourful effects added, and images of the Colosseum in Rome.

Media

"Butterflies and Hurricanes" has been covered with full orchestral accompaniment by pop pianist William Joseph on his 2004 album Within.

The song was used by ski brand Nordica in 2007 for the website introduction.

It is also used as the main song for Sony Computer Entertainment game Formula One 05, produced by Sony Studio Liverpool.

An orchestral version of the song was used as the theme and main song of the BBC's Sports Personality of the year award and on the BBC's 2010 Six Nations coverage.^[1]

Track listing

CD

1. "Butterflies and Hurricanes (Single Version)" - 4:48
2. "Sing for Absolution (Live Acoustic Radio 2)" - 4:28

Clear Vinyl 7"

1. "Butterflies and Hurricanes (full length)" - 5:01
2. "Butterflies and Hurricanes (Glastonbury 2004)"

DVD

1. "Butterflies and Hurricanes" - 4:48
2. "Butterflies and Hurricanes video" - 4:48
3. "The Groove in the States video" - 9:51
4. "Raw video footage"

Promo CD

1. "Butterflies and Hurricanes (radio edit)" - 4:10
2. "Butterflies and Hurricanes"

References