It starts with a glockenspiel. Just a few metallic, cold notes that sound like a nursery rhyme played in a funeral parlor. If you were around in 2008 when Intimacy dropped, you probably remember the whiplash. Bloc Party had spent the previous few years being the poster boys for jagged, nervous post-punk revival. They were all about Kele Okereke’s breathless delivery and Matt Tong’s frantic, disco-on-speed drumming. Then came signs by bloc party.
It wasn't what we expected.
Honestly, the track is a ghost story. It’s not about monsters or jump scares, though. It’s about the kind of haunting that happens in broad daylight when you’re staring at an empty chair or a pair of shoes left in the hallway. It is arguably the most vulnerable the band ever got, stripping away the electronic glitchiness of the rest of the album to leave something raw and, frankly, hard to listen to twice in one sitting.
The Raw Inspiration Behind the Lyrics
People always ask who it's about. Kele has been relatively open over the years, noting that the song deals with the death of a friend. It’s about that desperate, almost irrational desire to see a "sign" from someone who is gone. We’ve all been there. You look for them in the flickering of a lightbulb or a specific bird landing on a fence.
The lyrics are devastatingly literal. When Kele sings about "four months since you've been gone" and seeing "the body of a person" in the "shape of a towel," he isn't trying to be poetic or metaphorical. He’s describing the actual, mundane horror of grief. It’s the brain's refusal to accept a permanent absence. You see a shape in the corner of your eye and for a split second, you think they're back. Then the realization hits. It's just a towel.
The song captures that specific stage of mourning where you're not even angry anymore; you're just exhausted and looking for a reason to believe in something supernatural because the natural world is too cruel.
Why the Production on Intimacy Almost Ruined It (But Didn't)
The album Intimacy was a weird one for Bloc Party. They were leaning heavily into Jacknife Lee’s production style, which meant a lot of programmed beats and sampling. Tracks like "Ares" or "Mercury" were aggressive, loud, and felt like they belonged in a sweaty underground club.
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Then you have signs by bloc party.
Jacknife Lee and Paul Epworth worked on this record, and they made a bold choice with "Signs." They kept the vocals dry. You can hear Kele’s breath. You can hear the slight imperfections. There’s a string arrangement that swells toward the end, but it never feels "cinematic" in a cheap way. It feels heavy. Like the air in a room where nobody has opened a window in weeks.
The contrast is what makes it work. On an album that was criticized by some for being too experimental or "cold" due to the electronics, "Signs" acts as the beating heart. It’s the proof that the "intimacy" promised in the title wasn't just a marketing gimmick.
The Glockenspiel and the Sound of Childhood
There is something inherently creepy and sad about a glockenspiel. It’s an instrument associated with playfulness and primary school music rooms. By using it as the lead melodic line, Bloc Party tapped into a sense of lost innocence. It makes the song feel like a lullaby for someone who will never wake up.
Interestingly, the band often performed this with a live brass section during the Intimacy tour. If you ever saw them at festivals back then, the atmosphere would shift instantly. Thousands of people who were just jumping to "Banquet" would suddenly go dead silent. That is the power of this specific arrangement. It demands silence.
Comparing Signs to Other Bloc Party Ballads
Bloc Party has a history of writing "the sad one" for every album. You had "So Here We Are" on Silent Alarm and "SRXT" on A Weekend in the City.
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But signs by bloc party is different.
- "So Here We Are" is about nostalgia and the feeling of a moment slipping away. It’s dreamy.
- "SRXT" is about the finality of a choice, framed through a lens of depression. It’s dark and heavy.
- "Signs" is about the aftermath. It’s about the people left behind.
While "SRXT" ends the previous album on a note of total despair, "Signs" feels like a plea. It’s an active conversation with a spirit. It’s less about the person who died and more about the survivor's psyche. That nuance is why it resonates differently. It’s a song for the living who are stuck.
The Impact on the Fanbase and Legacy
Back in 2008, music forums (remember those?) were flooded with people sharing their own stories of loss because of this song. It became a focal point for the "indie" generation’s collective mourning. Even today, if you look at the comments on the official music video or live performances, it’s a graveyard of tributes.
It’s one of those rare tracks that transcends the "indie rock" label. You don't have to like post-punk to get it. You just have to have lost someone.
There was a remix by Armand Van Helden that some people liked, but honestly? It felt wrong. Taking a song about the physical manifestation of grief and putting a house beat under it felt like a total misunderstanding of why people loved the track in the first place. The original version is the only one that matters. It’s the one that captures the stillness.
Common Misconceptions About the Lyrics
A lot of people think the song is about a breakup.
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It isn’t.
While you can certainly project your own feelings onto it, the lyrics "the flowers you found, they're all dead now" and the references to the "blackest cell" and "the body of a person" point toward a much more permanent loss. Kele has discussed the "dark period" the band was in during the mid-2000s, dealing with the pressures of fame and personal tragedies. This song was the pressure valve.
Also, some fans believe the "signs" refer to astrology. Again, not really. It’s about the signs of presence—the scent of someone’s perfume, the way the light hits a certain spot, or a recurring dream. It’s about the universe being a "hologram" and the hope that there’s a glitch allowing a loved one to peak through.
How to Truly Appreciate the Track Today
If you haven't listened to it in a while, or if you're just discovering it, don't play it on your phone speakers while doing the dishes. It won't work.
- Wait for night. This is 100% a nighttime song.
- Use headphones. You need to hear the layering of the glockenspiel and the way the strings eventually bleed into the mix.
- Listen to the lyrics. Actually follow the narrative of the towel on the floor and the "bleaching" of the memories.
If you’re a musician or a songwriter, look at the structure. It doesn’t follow a traditional Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus format. It builds. It’s a steady crescendo of emotion that never quite resolves into a "happy" chord. It stays in that minor-key tension until the very end.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Listeners:
- Explore the "Intimacy Remixed" album if you want to see how other artists tried to deconstruct the track, but keep your expectations low for "Signs"—it's hard to remix a funeral dirge.
- Check out Kele’s solo work, particularly Fatherland, if you want to see how his songwriting evolved from this specific point of raw vulnerability into something more folk-driven and acoustic.
- Watch the 2009 Reading Festival performance of this song. It’s one of the few times the lighting and the crowd perfectly matched the mood of the track.
The real power of the song lies in its honesty. It doesn't promise that things get better. It doesn't say that the signs are real. It just admits that we want them to be. And sometimes, that's enough to help you get through the next four months.