I honestly have no idea why it took me so long to remember that. I've been a pianist for 10 years, a flutist for seven, and have recently started learning the bagpipes.
My point is, I'm really not much of a visual artist. Looking at my artwork, most people can tell that. What I want to do today is to talk about some music lyrics analysis. This idea came to me while I was driving and I haven't really developed it much, but it stuck with me.
So the band Owl City. I like a lot of different types of music. I think that Owl City makes fun music that's easy to listen to and pretty straightforward, comprehension-wise. By that I mean that, in most of their songs, what you hear is pretty much what you get, as far as I've noticed. The exception to that rule, as of now, is "On The Wing" from the Album Ocean Eyes. Here's the album cover if anyone is interested.
And here's a link to the song on YouTube: Owl City-On the Wing
Now hold on to your hats, everyone, cuz this is where we get technical.
I want you all to listen to the first line of the song. "Breathe, and I'll carry you away, into the velvet sky, and we'll stir the stars around..." There are two ways to take this, the normal way, and the Morgan-overanalyzes-everything-because-she-is-an-author way. Yes, that is true, if you care. I am writing a book. This is a legitimate source of analysis.
First way: "Take a deep breath and imagine that..."
The first way to listen to this song is to imagine that there are two people, say a couple, and they're describing hypotheticals to one another. It's a bit like telling someone to count sheep. Automatically, you breathe deeply, close your eyes, and imagine a warm, sunny meadow with lots of happy sheep bouncing around. No? That's only me? Ok. This gives the entire song a sort of peaceful, ethereal sort of feel. The "Velvet Sky" in particular makes me think of a beautiful sunrise of some sort, where you can still see the darkness of the night, but the sun is also creeping over.
And this is where my morbid, author's brain comes into play, because there's another way that this line is interpreted. It popped into my mind after I wrote a scene in which someone dies very tragically and suddenly. Let me change the punctuation.
"Breathe. And I'll carry you away..."
OK. Now, it seems like "Breathe" is a separate entity. Almost like a plea. We've all seen the movies where a loved one is in a coma or dying and someone says, "Open your eyes" or "Stay with me" or "Breathe, goddammit." And its very sad and tragic.
There's this great scene in the new Doctor Who, a show that I love very much, that demonstrates this. The episode is called "Let's Kill Hitler". The part I'm talking about comes near the beginning, where a young woman is shot and is dying. She says something along the lines of "When I was little, I thought I'd marry you." and the Doctor replies with something along the lines of "Stay alive and we'll get married." I would put a link but I can't find the scene. Don't fear, I found a still. Or maybe its a gif. I don't really know.
Does anyone see the similarity? See, there's this innate human antagonism towards having people we know die. So, when it seems like someone we love is dying, we try and give them incentive to stay alive. It gives us hope that we may not lose them after all. See, when there's no hope, it's that much harder to let go. It's that much more tragic.
That's a clip from another new Doctor Who episode, entitled "Blink". It's very complicated and you should watch it. But notice that, because Billy knows that he is dying and that there is nothing he can do about it, it's almost more tragic. There's no hope.
Now re-listen to the line. Now, it sounds like a promise. If you stay with me, if you breathe, I'll do this for you. The entire song is that same promise, accentuated with the loved one making sure that the person is still alive. "Are you there? Or is this just a decoy dream..."
Yeah. That's a "are you still alive" moment if I've ever seen one. Are you still alive, or is the heart-lung machine just making me think you are?
Now, at this point, I would say "But that's just a theory... a Game Theory!" But I can't, because that is so totally not my line to use. (For those of you who don't know Game Theory, it's part of a YouTube channel that basically breaks down that infamously strange video game logic that we all love so much. I'll link to the video of theirs that I first watched, maybe you can enjoy it, too.) The video actually has a bit to do with what I've been talking about-death. But don't worry, it's not too morbid. Hell, if you got through this post, you should be ok, cuz I got pretty dark in here, or at least, I think I did. Enjoy:
Slàinte mhor a h-uile là a chi 's nach fhaic!
Chi mi a-rithist sibh!
Morgan
(Bonus points to the first person to translate that! Hint: The language comes from a country in the UK)
