So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Cough, gasp, and sputter,
Spinning helplessly down toward the earth.
A loss of control, the sky swallows whole.
Spinning down, down.
Forever falling down, down, down.
But is it entirely a flightless fall?
No deceptive currents, no rise at all?
Maybe it's too naive to not jump ship
When deviating so drastically from the initial script.
Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability,
And all the casualties therein.
Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun,
Witness eclipsing, eclipsing, eclipsed.
Is it completely void? Or is the truth in shade?
Are all the facts before us a masquerade?
Suffering no deceit, no selfish lies,
We stand in our own crypt and we mobilize,
Waking up to blazing heat
And the stench of rancid meat.
Don't have the patience or the time to repeat mistakes.
Like high, hot hauls, through highway tolls
With bigger brothers for hungry trolls.
Each horn sharpened by eye sockets torn,
Standing on the graves of the worn.
Welcome to the place integrity is born.
Heart in the right place, just missing the mark.
Feigning exception is a shot in the dark.
With no remorse and no regret,
Is anybody listening yet?
Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability,
And all the casualties therein.
Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun,
Witness eclipsing, eclipsing, eclipsed.
Bask in uncertainty.
Strange things can happen when faced with adversity.
Ask and you shall receive,
Or swing frantic your arms. Fate is nothing but a nervous belief.
I don't believe the end is in pavement.
I don't believe there's anything beneath.
I don't believe there's death in the basement,
No I don't believe.
No I don't believe.
Embrace the fall, there is no end.
No ambiguous hypothesis to comprehend.
No bruised and battered egos in descent's entire ethos.
No magnificent creation myth. No wind to pad the story with.
Only I will never quit, or watch my brothers quit,
But I'll lower down a lifeboat if you're abandoning the ship.
"True sailing's dead, " should have been the first thing said
Before the writing could be written, before the writing could be read.
The wreckage was never found,
But the black box was recovered.
The message therein profound.
In our final moments our true names are all discovered.
So let it fall, fall. Even if it turns out to be futile,
At least we couldn't ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful.
They'll never find the wreckage, transcending all human languages.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there truly ever is.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is.
Stumble beneath the radar, big holes in each great city
Is all the evidence I need.
Knowledge often beckons and can lead astray.
Whisper release me, release me, release.
Dive into an endless sea.
No reason to falter no plan supersedes.
Altering frequencies,
But we welcome the change. Fate is nothing but a nervous disease.
Cough, gasp, and sputter,
Spinning helplessly down toward the earth.
A loss of control, the sky swallows whole.
Spinning down, down.
Forever falling down, down, down.
Spinning helplessly down toward the earth.
A loss of control, the sky swallows whole.
Spinning down, down.
Forever falling down, down, down.
But is it entirely a flightless fall?
No deceptive currents, no rise at all?
Maybe it's too naive to not jump ship
When deviating so drastically from the initial script.
Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability,
And all the casualties therein.
Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun,
Witness eclipsing, eclipsing, eclipsed.
Is it completely void? Or is the truth in shade?
Are all the facts before us a masquerade?
Suffering no deceit, no selfish lies,
We stand in our own crypt and we mobilize,
Waking up to blazing heat
And the stench of rancid meat.
Don't have the patience or the time to repeat mistakes.
Like high, hot hauls, through highway tolls
With bigger brothers for hungry trolls.
Each horn sharpened by eye sockets torn,
Standing on the graves of the worn.
Welcome to the place integrity is born.
Heart in the right place, just missing the mark.
Feigning exception is a shot in the dark.
With no remorse and no regret,
Is anybody listening yet?
Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability,
And all the casualties therein.
Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun,
Witness eclipsing, eclipsing, eclipsed.
Bask in uncertainty.
Strange things can happen when faced with adversity.
Ask and you shall receive,
Or swing frantic your arms. Fate is nothing but a nervous belief.
I don't believe the end is in pavement.
I don't believe there's anything beneath.
I don't believe there's death in the basement,
No I don't believe.
No I don't believe.
Embrace the fall, there is no end.
No ambiguous hypothesis to comprehend.
No bruised and battered egos in descent's entire ethos.
No magnificent creation myth. No wind to pad the story with.
Only I will never quit, or watch my brothers quit,
But I'll lower down a lifeboat if you're abandoning the ship.
"True sailing's dead, " should have been the first thing said
Before the writing could be written, before the writing could be read.
The wreckage was never found,
But the black box was recovered.
The message therein profound.
In our final moments our true names are all discovered.
So let it fall, fall. Even if it turns out to be futile,
At least we couldn't ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful.
They'll never find the wreckage, transcending all human languages.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there truly ever is.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is.
Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is.
Stumble beneath the radar, big holes in each great city
Is all the evidence I need.
Knowledge often beckons and can lead astray.
Whisper release me, release me, release.
Dive into an endless sea.
No reason to falter no plan supersedes.
Altering frequencies,
But we welcome the change. Fate is nothing but a nervous disease.
Cough, gasp, and sputter,
Spinning helplessly down toward the earth.
A loss of control, the sky swallows whole.
Spinning down, down.
Forever falling down, down, down.
Lyrics submitted by TUNDRA35, edited by Chrissal1x, temp1444, Maxitrillion, Mellow_Harsher
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I think its about being in a band and how it is so tempting to quit and go to school/get a job, ect, playing it safe since life on the road and with a band can be very stressful and difficult. the plane falling from the sky or the ship sinking is a metaphor for PTH itself, and i think alot of the lyrics have to do with Moe leaving the band and the inner struggle that rody is dealing with concerning the band. lyrics that support my theory: "Is it entirely a flightless fall? no deceptive currents, no rise at all? maybe it’s too naive to not jump ship when deviating so drastically from the initial script"
"Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability, and all the casualties therein. Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun, witness eclipsing."
"Heart in the right place, just missing the mark Feigning exception is a shot in the dark With no remorse and no regret, is anybody listening yet?"
but then rody realizes that he is doing what makes him happy and he will see it to the end, no matter the consequences.
"The wreckage was never found but the black box was recovered. The message therein profound. In our final moments our true names are all discovered.
So let it fall. Even if it turns out to be futile, at least we couldn’t ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful. They’ll never find the wreckage, transcending all human languages. Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there truly ever is"
Officially my favorite song so far =]
I agree, thanks for laying it out so clearly<br /> <br /> I think I've said each and every song on the album was my favorite at one point.
Lyrics seem like an agnostic view on life. An acceptance of uncertainty and also the only thing known is that "descent is all there truly ever is."
Firstly, denouncing a religious view of heaven and hell while moving on to describe a different kind of descent, whether it be civilization or a single life on earth.
Don't have much time right now to elaborate but a great song, love the recurring theme of an archaeological look on the past. Reminds me of Turn Soonest To The Sea.
And the recurring themes of existentialism also found in Moonlight.
Yeah, I agree about the themes of existentialism.<br />
The lyrics here are using United Flight 93 as a metaphor for the importance of accepting mortality and recognizing that leaving a message with what little time you have is the most anyone can do. The lyrics are written from dual perspectives: one (which mostly accompanies the frantic verses, but also appears in a few refrains) represents the thoughts of a person on United Flight 93 contemplating his or her situation and the consequences of his or her actions, and the other (the chorus and some refrains) is the broader narrative arch that connects that passenger's thoughts to the broader philosophical point.
Once the passenger accepted that death was their fate, then that "fate" was rendered powerless to actually control their actions; the passenger used the time left to leave a message to the world and that was all that mattered. This same point is broadly applicable to everyone alive. Their fate is death. Once they realize that, the only thing that matters is the message they send before they complete their fall.
The direct references to Flight 93:
"Suffering no deceit, no selfish lies, we stand in our own crypt and we mobilize"
"The wreckage was never found, but the black box was recovered."
"Stumble beneath the radar, big holes in each great city is all the evidence I need."
Where the song ties the tragedy to the broader philosophical point:
"The wreckage was never found, but the black box was recovered. The message therein profound. In our final moments our true names are all discovered. So let it fall, fall. Even if it turns out to be futile, at least we couldn?t ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful. They?ll never find the wreckage, transcending all human languages. Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there truly ever is. Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is. Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is. Just a promise and a final message: the descent is all there ever is. Just a promise and a, just a promise and a final message: the fall is all there ever is."
On a personal note, I think this song is pure, beautiful brilliance, both lyrically and musically. I even get a bit teary-eyed listening to it.
I think you nailed it about being a metaphor on flights that do not land and the fate of death, now looking in hindsight it seems pretty obvious but I could not figure it before.<br /> <br /> I just do not see how it is specifically related to United Flight 93 at all, if you have some points to support this I'd be curious to know. But the good thing was that I read and learnt more about the history behind the Flight 93. And thanks for the contribution btw.<br /> <br /> Anyway, excellent song and lyrics, one of my favourite of PtH now. Also pretty good to listen in the landing of flights.
Thanks for your comment. The lyrics actually have Flight 93 references woven throughout.<br /> <br /> The most explicit one is "Stumble beneath the radar, big holes in each great city<br /> is all the evidence I need," which is directly addressing the passengers' discovery of the other attacks and how that discovery prompted them to take action.<br /> <br /> But there are more:<br /> <br /> "The wreckage was never found,<br /> but the black box was recovered"<br /> <br /> This is addressing how the crash site of flight 93 left almost no visible wreckage, but the black box they eventually dug up ultimately told the story of the now-obliterated plane.<br /> <br /> "Suffering no deceit, no selfish lies,<br /> we stand in our own crypt and we mobilize"<br /> <br /> The use of the verb "mobilize" here is an echo of the language used in Todd Beamer's "let's roll" phone call. In a normal crashing flight, this language would be odd: what would the passenger's be "mobilizing" to do? It only makes sense if you understand they are mobilizing to take the plane back from the hijackers, even though doing so will not save their own lives (hence the "stand in our own crypt").<br /> <br /> "at least we couldn't ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful."<br /> <br /> September 11 was a beautiful, clear day in the northeast where the attacks and the Flight 93 crash occurred.<br /> <br /> I think the song is definitely deliberately vague so as to universalize its broader message, but I do think there is still enough there so that the basis for the metaphor is identifiable.<br /> <br />
Only problem of course being that this song was written and recorded long before MH370 and MH17 went down...
re cramthelanon August 27, 2014:<br /> <br /> Do you seriously not know the difference between Flight 93 and the Malaysian airlines planes? Way to read, champ.
This has nothing to do with the song, but whoever wrote these lyrics is an asshole. Haven't you ever heard of a paragraph? This is very hard to read.
Thank you to whoever fixed it, it's much better now :)
chill out dude. Never got back around to splitting them into stanzas and someone got there before me.
To me, this song is talking about facing the world without the meaning provided by the existence of God or some higher purpose. It has some parallels to "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus. He bases his essay around the absurd condition, which is that "much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live as if they didn't know about the certainty of death; once stripped of its common romanticisms, the world is a foreign, strange and inhuman place; true knowledge is impossible and rationality and science cannot explain the world"
The Fall described in the song is our journey through life. We are all headed for the end someday, but if we recognize and accept that, we don't have to live a nihilists. We are free to enjoy the things in life that CAN be enjoyed.
Here are some more specifics from the lyrics:
"Tremble beneath the weight of inevitability, and all the casualties therein." - Struggling with the realization that death is inevitable, not only for you but for everyone you know and experience.
"Cower in the shadow of the ever-present sun, witness eclipsing, eclipsing, eclipsed." - Again, Camus describes the world in which existence is not explained by a higher power. The vastness of the cold and indifferent universe is intimidating when living such a small existence.
"No ambiguous hypothesis to comprehend. No bruised and battered egos in descent's entire ethos. No magnificent creation myth. No wind to pad the story with." - Pretty straightforward.
"Fate is nothing but a nervous disease." - Google fate and you will get "the development of events beyond a person's control, regarded as determined by a supernatural power." It is a concept we, as humans, turn to because we are too afraid to face this world without some sense of purpose or meaning.
"So let it fall, fall. Even if it turns out to be futile, at least we couldn?t ask for a sky so clear or a day more beautiful." - I think, the most important lines in the song. The message from the black box that the song describes is "The fall is all there truly ever is." It tells us the only truth that we need to know about the world. We are all headed to the same place. But it doesn't matter, because there is beauty in the world, things that we can appreciate and enjoy on the way down.
@A2 How has no one upvoted this? Good analysis, I like to think of this song in this sense as well as the Flight 93 reference that Zhicagoz mentions
"two great big holes in the city is all the evidence i need", the entire song is about a plane going down, it's about 9/11 m8s.
Its a toss up bt something political or something about the music industry and bands breaking up. Political: Whatever hes singing about he is saying its hopeless, that our fate is an inevitable downfall. But also holding out for that brief glimpse of light and asking in the first verse is there no chance for redemption or is it truly all downhill from here. Then whoever political hes referring to saying is it too naive for them to join the bandwagon especially when ur nothing like u were originally. Second verse hes asking again r we really screwed or is the truth hidden and are those facts even reliable or "a masquerade". They (political ppl) move fwd (with their laws) with no regard to their own fate bc they dont have time to think about mistakes. They always will mess up except for that random shot in the dark. Even then they dont care. Musical: is for the other interpretation except politicians r musicians and laws r their decision to break up and hes saying the same thing. Every musician is gonna suffer the same fate.
The chorus both ways is saying we're all victims of fate