Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)

One of the great joys of French history is its truly stirring revolutionary music. And in 2024, French metal titans Gojira gave one of the most famous anthems of all, "Ça Ira," a thoroughly ear-splitting, guitar-thrashing, pyro-laden reinvention as "Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!)."

Composed in 1790, "Ça Ira" was a rousing battle cry of the French Revolution, its title optimistically translating to "It Will Be Fine." The song's origins are linked to Benjamin Franklin during his time in Paris. When asked about the American Revolutionary War, he reportedly replied, "Ça ira, ça ira" ("It'll be fine, it'll be fine").

On July 26, 2024, in a moment that left historians and metalheads doing a double take, Gojira performed their version live at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. This marked the first time a metal band had ever played at an Olympic opening ceremony, proving once and for all that metal is indeed an international sport. The performance was suitably over the top. Mezzo-soprano opera singer Marina Viotti, sailing by on a ship, joined them, while pyrotechnics blazed and a collection of beheaded figures symbolizing the doomed Queen Marie Antoinette loomed ominously in the background. The whole spectacle unfolded outside the Conciergerie, the former royal residence turned revolutionary prison where Antoinette herself spent her last miserable days before being dramatically shortened by the guillotine in 1793.