Genre
‘What Matters’ is a protest song. It is about the increasing uncertainty of today’s society because of a pseudo nationalistic isolation which encourages prejudices of many kinds by insulting and the usage of hate speech on quite every statement presented on internet platforms.
The majority of people all over the world does not belong to those few who consider themselves to be free to insult others or promote fake news.
This song is meant to stand for people’s longing for attitude and the acceptance of a peaceful, democratic and outcome-oriented exchange of ideas. At the same time it says that we do not want any haters and their arrogance but respect and tolerance.
Structure of the song
The vocal part of the full version of the song begins with the choir singing an incomprehensible “rum-na”. Originally it was planned to sing “rumor”, but the intended message of some unidentifiable information, typical of many people spreading rumors all at the same time, results much better in “rum-na” with the musical scale.
This initiates a clear statement of the intended message: As a means of the typical structure of the course of a ‘protest march’ it usually starts with the proclamation of the central requests – “Black lives matter, each life matters, …”.
The choir then refers again to the rumor mill (“rum-na”) leading to the first speaker’s announcement of the facts and requests on this ‘protest march’: “People are worried, people are scared” because of “all these haters around, all those lies shared” on the internet. The employed references to songs of the peaceful protest movements in earlier days, like “When shall we overcome all this” (“We shall overcome”) and “How many roads must we walk down” (“How many roads must a man walk down”) are supposed to enforce the long tradition of protest songs.
This verse ends with the rational appeal to “think before you vote” and not to take spontaneous and emotionally influenced decisions whenever there are elections of any kind; one of the precious characteristics of democracy is included.
Directly after this an imagined second speaker on this ‘protest assembly’ announces all the behavior patterns rejected in an adequate social behavior: “All you haters, you’re fired, ‘cause you lack respect … moral’s defect … intolerant … arrogant”.
Of course, this will not stop the rumor mill at once and so the choir’s “rum-na” reminds us again of all this verbal attacking on the internet and elsewhere, before the proclamation of the central requests is repeated in a kind of dialogue between the lead singer and the choir: “Black lives matter, each life matters, individuals matter, respect matters”.
The attitude of life to be conveyed by this song (and movement) though, is intended to be a positive one and that is why the ending of this song is to express people’s joy of life by staying together, celebrating, singing and dancing. In short: It’s party time!