What Is The Song In The Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 Trailer?

Nearly 10 years ago, Marvel Studios released the first trailer for an odd film featuring an obscure comic book team of C-list antiheroes. Yet, by the first vocals of Blue Swede's "Hooked on a Feeling," fans were already beginning to trust the chaotic, colorful vision of James Gunn's "Guardians of the Galaxy."

Today, the studio has unveiled the trailer for Gunn's Marvel Cinematic Universe swan song — the culmination of a beautiful and tumultuous decade-long partnership. Before he moves on to revive the DC Universe, Gunn aims to definitively wrap up the stories of Peter Quill, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and the rest of the team in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3."

As was the case with the trailer for his first MCU film, the trailer for "Volume 3" features quick jokes, loud fight sequences, palpable emotions, tons of small details, and a killer soundtrack. Ever intentional in his needle drop choices, Gunn's selection for his final film perfectly captures the apparent mood of the story — a little bit somber, a lotta bit celebratory.

The soundtrack to this trailer is a cinematic remix of "In the Meantime," performed by the 1990's English-American rock band Spacehog. Aside from the cheeky extraterrestrial nod evident in the band's name, the lyrics of "In the Meantime" paint a bittersweet portrait of life and death. "At the end of the day it's saying whatever you gotta do, it's OK, it's alright," Spacehog's Royston Langdon once told Songfacts. "And I think that's also me talking to myself, getting through my wan anxieties and fear of death.

Opening with vocalizations that sound angelic, distant, and yet sharply rock-and-roll, the song begins, "And in the end, we shall achieve in time / The thing they called divine / When all the stars will smile for me / When all is well and well is all for all / And forever after / Well, maybe in the meantime, wait and see..." The song's narrator is musing about the inevitability of death from a point of view that's somewhere between neutral and positive. The "meantime" he describes is day-to-day life, with the remainder of the song expressing a deep, emotional gratitude for the earth. From the song's perspective, one should be grateful for whatever time they're given and should constantly endeavor to use it in a personally meaningful way — then, when it's finally time to move on, they can meet death with the same gratitude and peace.

It's a particularly heart-wrenching tune backing a trailer full of loss, pain, and an aching sense of finality. Rocket's line, "We'll all fly away together one last time, into the forever — that beautiful sky," feels especially poignant, as though he were talking to the audience. It's almost as if Gunn is saying, through Rocket, "It's time to say goodbye to these characters now and to be grateful for the time we had with them — it's going to be okay."