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Cover of The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire
Cover: The Suburbs

Song · The Arcade Fire

“We Used to Wait” by The Arcade Fire

From the album The Suburbs (2010)

“We Used to Wait” by The Arcade Fire appears on 24 radio countdowns from 18 stations between 2010 and 2024. It was first released in 2010 on the album The Suburbs. Its best result is #7 on the 102.1 The Edge Top 102 Songs of 2011. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #56 alternative song of 2011, #3,491 alternative song of all time and #164 of the '10s.

24countdowns
18stations
#7best position
0#1 finishes
2top 10 finishes
2010–2024years charted

Watch

Arcade Fire - We Used to Wait (Official Lyric Video)

Video from YouTube (ArcadeFireVEVO). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube

"We Used to Wait" came out as the first UK single from The Suburbs, Arcade Fire's 2010 album, while America got "Ready to Start" first. All six of them wrote it, Win and Will Butler, Régine Chassagne, Jeremy Gara, Tim Kingsbury and Richard Reed Parry, and the band produced it themselves; it builds from a restless pulse into a full-band surge that feels like running late for something that matters.

Its second life happened online. Chris Milk and Google Creative Lab turned it into The Wilderness Downtown, a location-based interactive video made to show off HTML5 and the brand-new Chrome browser, named after one of the song's lines. Rolling Stone counted it among the best videos of 2010, TIME later put it on an all-time list, and it took a Grand Prix at the Cannes advertising awards in 2011. On the Suburbs tour, postcards fans filled out at the end of it became the backdrop behind the band.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.

RockLists rankings

Alternative & Modern Rock

Indie & Adult Alternative

All Rock Formats

Year-end countdowns

Year#StationCountdownof
2010 11 WFNX Boston, MA WFNX Top 101 Songs of 2010 101
2010 11 WRNR 103.1 Annapolis, MD WRNR Top 103.1 Songs of 2010 104
2010 34 WTMD Baltimore, MD WTMD Top 89 Songs of 2010 89
2010 92 Channel 92.3 San Jose / San Francisco Bay Area, CA Channel 92.3 Top 92 Songs of 2010 92
2010 25 Studio Brussel Flanders, Belgium Studio Brussel De Eindafrekening 2010 40
2010 44 107.1 The Peak Westchester County, NY WXPK Top 107 Songs of 2010 107
2010 71 WXPN Philadelphia, PA WXPN Year in Review: Top 100 Songs of 2010 100
2011 38 91X San Diego, CA / Tijuana 91X Top 91 Songs of 2011 91
2011 17 WFNX Boston, MA WFNX Top 101 Songs of 2011 101
2011 22 CD101 Columbus, OH CD101 Top 102 Songs of 2011 102
2011 7 CFNY 102.1 The Edge Toronto, ON 102.1 The Edge Top 102 Songs of 2011 102
2011 12 102.7 WEQX Southern Vermont and the Capital District of New York (Albany) WEQX Top 102.7 of 2011 103
2011 9 90.5 WERG Erie, PA WERG Top 90 of 2011 90
2011 41 KJEE 92.9 Santa Barbara, CA KJEE Top 92 Songs of 2011 92
2011 60 KSLG Eureka (Humboldt County), CA KSLG Top 94 Slugtracks of 2011 94
2011 92 Rock 93.5 Columbia, SC Rock 93.5 WARQ Top 93 of 2011 92
2011 14 93XRT Chicago, IL WXRT Listener Poll: Top 25 Songs of 2011 25
2011 94 WBRU Providence, RI WBRU Top 95.5 Songs of 2011 96

All-time and decade countdowns

Year#StationCountdownof
2011 1219 CD101 CD101 Top 2012 Songs of All-Time (December 2011) 2011
2013 894 CD101 CD101 Top 2013 Songs of All-Time (December 2013) 2012
2013 690 WXPN WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013) 885
2014 806 CD101 CD101 Top 2014 Songs of All-Time (2014) 2013
2019 89 102.7 WEQX WEQX Top 102.7 of the 2010's Decade 103
2024 116 The Colorado Sound The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Songs of the 21st Century 1055

Also listed as: We Used To Wait.

Charting alongside it in 2011

Best songs of 2011 →
  1. 1Pumped up KicksFoster The People
  2. 2RopeFoo Fighters
  3. 3The Adventures of Rain Dance MaggieRed Hot Chili Peppers
  4. 4WalkFoo Fighters
  5. 5You are a TouristDeath Cab for Cutie
  6. 6Rolling in the DeepAdele

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