This Fire

When you dive into *This Fire* by Franz Ferdinand, you encounter an energy that grabs you from the first moment. It's the seventh track from their self-titled debut album, a piece that was born in 2003 in a studio in Scotland, with the band itself taking the reins of production. What's interesting is that, for its release as a single on October 4, 2004, it was given a twist. A new version, this time under the production of Rich Costey, saw the light of day with a slightly modified title: *This Fffire*. The artwork for this single is a visual nod to the work *Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge* by El Lissitzky, a detail that connects the music with early 20th-century visual art.

The impact of *This Fire* extended beyond the charts. In 2004, it was part of the soundtrack for the racing video game *Burnout 3: Takedown*. Later, its sound was reinterpreted by Lil Wayne and Twista in their track *Burn This City*. But perhaps one of the most surprising moments in its trajectory came in 2022, when the version produced by Rich Costey was chosen to open *Cyberpunk: Edgerunners*, the animated series linked to *Cyberpunk 2077*. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the track stood out on radio and digital downloads, reaching number 17 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and eighth place on the UK Download Chart. In Australia, as a CD single, it reached number 62 on the ARIA Singles Chart and was positioned at number 29 on Triple J's 2004 Hottest 100 list. The music video, directed by Stylewar, evokes the style of Soviet art and propaganda from the 1920s, with Cyrillic lettering and a narrative about an "epidemic of hypnosis" spreading across the world. The original composition of the track, like most of the album, is the work of Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy.