Matthew Barber was eight gigs into a US tour when the pandemic hit and everything changed. So the Toronto based singer-songwriter’s new song ‘Viral’ can be seen as a lockdown song – and it is in part, but there’s more to it than that. Barber muses on our several paths to destruction – the antagonism of the current political scene, the human tendency towards violence, the technology that too few of us really understand and yes even the personal destruction of the big mistake that goes around the world in a heartbeat.
Matthew Barber elaborated on the themes of the song: “‘Viral’ is about the accelerated world we live in. A world in which technology grapples with nature and ingenuity spawns unintended consequences. It is a call for humility – a reminder that we don’t know everything, and as we edge closer to the gods we must not lose touch with our common humanity.”
