With imperial crowns we were sent, Riding out conquest-bent Daylight is breaking Wielding the sanctified sword For the army of the Scarecrow Lord Daylight is breaking Balancing scales at our feet Measuring out two pounds of barley, six pounds of buckwheat Beasts of the Battersea Shield At the opening of the fourth seal The sky, I'd been told Would roll up like a scroll As the mountains and islands moved from their place And the sun would turn black As a dead raven's back But there'd be nowhere to hide From the Judge's face After which message-less birds take flight without cause To the silence they've heard in the absence of laws Or imperial crowns: Unsent, unsigned
Memory of a first fight In our contemptible youth I quoted White Nights Thinking that'd get rid of you And waited with a stone in my hand But you were quite right: Nature had another plan (& failed to run it by me) Nature had another plan Some other surrogate self To live in the sediment of so many somebody elses' Innumerable lives and you were right: It's not a person who dies But worlds die inside us
the Pale Horses lyrics are really cool to me bc they don't really mean anything to me in terms of emotional resonance, at least not literally...but I still /feel/ like I know what he's attempting to convey and I still get something out of it
i know exactly what you mean haha. Aaron is the only lyricist that i can have little to no idea what he is talking about, yet still be in awe of his words.
I feel like I only /really/ think this line of thought in reference to Rainbow Signs even though it technically is true of most of the album. Rainbow Signs is one of my favorite songs in their discography and I still try to wring out a meaning from it and it's different every time lol. yeah, I wish I spent as much time on anything at all as Aaron must spend on the lyrics. the meter alone is impressive considering how much he's condensing but then there's all the internal rhymes, assonance, alliterations....endlessly inventive.
this is really well put. this is what i was trying to say but didnt put it nearly as eloquently. Im curious what some of our interpretations of Rainbow Signs are. Thats interesting to hear youve thought of multiple meanings because for me thats one mewithoutYou song that pants a consistent image in my mind each time i listen (end of the world, apocalypse, events from the book of revelations etc)
I tend to flip between the literal depictions of apocalypse and just thinking it's a metaphor for the overwhelming emotional overload and subsequent barrenness that comes with processing yr own grief after then passing of a loved one (based solely on the last verse). I've also considered that since it ends with death, maybe the apocalyptic imagery is supposed to be a depiction of the chaos of every day Life
see, i could see this for the first and last verse, but the verses i posted above i 100% think its about revelations stuff about the end of days
yeh, but reading the lyrics I probably wouldn't have gotten that without knowing that's what he wrote it about and so I ascribe a bunch of dumb things to it additionally bc I guess I can't give the song a break
but what @EmmanuelSCastle said is basically it. Even if it is about his father dying, at the very least he is using scriptural prophesies to convey imagery / emotions of losing someone. which is dope, i never even considered that.
Yooo I listened to the billboard podcast interviewing Michael and Rickie last night and it got me even more stoked for the new album than I already was... everyone needs to listen if they already havnt. “40 seconds into the album people will be surprised”
Ngl, I legit started laughing at the absurdity of Paramore playing No Friend at Bonnaroo in front of 35k ppl. So cool to hear Aaron Weiss’ voice to the whole crowd
I thought he was suggesting it’ll be surprising due to heaviness and possibly screaming. Electronics is a popular move but I don’t see it coming from these guys
Remember when The National said they were experimenting with electronic sounds for Sleep Well Beast and there were people hesitant about the idea but then the album turned out dope? Electronic elements could be really cool for this band
At this point this is all super baseless speculation... buuuut, if I had to lay money down and place a bet I wouldn’t be predicting a ton of electronic elements on the record but we will see