Nathaniel: There's been so much apocalyptic stuff in the news lately - global warming, war on terror, and genocide in those countries over there (which can, all too soon, turn into countries right here). After getting my daily dose of bad news on the internet I had to get out and go for a walk. Thankfully, there's a park near my house where the trees and critters are able to obscure the sights and most of the sounds of the city.
As
I sat there I was reminded of a poem that I read many years ago: Sara
Teasdale's There
Will Come Soft Rains.
Here's the text of the poem:
There
will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
and swallows
circling with their shimmering sound;
And
frogs in the pools, singing at night,
and
wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins
will wear their feathery fire,
whistling
their whims on a low fence-wire;
And
not one will know of the war,
not
one
will care at last when it is done.
Not
one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
of
mankind perished utterly;
And
Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
could
scarcely know that we were gone.
It
was written in 1920 and was a direct result of the carnage of WWI.
In
recent times, I've been thinking about where our species is going.
Perhaps it won't be war that does us in. Perhaps it's the
environment? The latest super-virus? Zombies? Aliens? These are
things that aren't necessarily the result of someone pushing the
button to launch the missile but are certainly things that we as a
species really should be taking steps to ameliorate. Apparently, the
US Government is already planning for a Zombie Apocalypse:
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/the-pentagon-s-plan-to-stop-the-zombie-apocalypse-1.283263
It
the nuclear dread of the 50's has turned into the ravening cannibal
horde dread of the modern day.
An
aside: if not for the bravery of one Russian soldier, we all would
have died in a nuclear holocaust in 1983. Seriously. Check this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov. Scary as hell, that.
Anyway.
I didn't mean for this song to be quite as dark as it is but I
suppose I shouldn't be surprised by it. If we disappear, the sun will
still rise. The seasons with still cycle. And critters the world over
will still live and, hopefully, thrive. Maybe we can pull our
collective asses out of the fire. I remain hopeful.
When
Alyssa sent me her first draft of the lyrics she included an iPhone
recording of her singing the melody. I popped that into Cubase and it
was so good I was just going to keep that as the final take for the
album. Alas, we changed the words so we had to fly her to Seattle to
have her record on a real mic.
Tempest:
Nathan asked me to listen to a melody that he was working on, and
what imagery I saw in it. The vision that came to mind as I listened
was hazy, but strong morning light illuminating a large empty bed in
room with open doors looking out to a similarly empty patio. Morning
had come to an empty world, with no one to welcome it. In explaining
this picture, I remembered one of Ray Bradbury's short stories I had
read half a lifetime ago – of an electronic house in a
post-apocalyptic time. Everything was still running as normal, but
there was no one there left alive to witness it. Growing up in the
era of the Cold War, I was keenly aware that that nuclear devastation
loomed possibly just around the corner, and Bradbury's story embedded
itself into my subconscious. As I described it, Nathan knew exactly
which one I meant.
Alyssa:
I am constantly in awe of how insignificant the human race is in the
grand scheme of the universe, how we are just moments in time, though
we desperately attempt to achieve immortality through what we build
and what we destroy. The song started as a tune Nathan sent me and
the chorus flowed rather easily….as I continued, the dichotomy of a
childhood rhyme that has been linked (though incorrectly) to the
black plague that killed a quarter of Europe’s population, seemed a
natural fit. And of course, if you listen closely, I left a few
easter eggs in the lyrics that are nods to Whedonesque philosophies.
There is a vastness of space and we are screaming into the void, but
who is left to hear us when we are ourselves are gone?
LYRICS:
Who
mourns Eos?
Ring
around the rosy
Light
preceeds the sound
Flashes,
Ashes
We
all fall down
It’s
raining, it’s raining on the home
Standing,
still standing all alone
No
crying, no crying can erase
The
shadows that lie burned ‘cross it’s face.
Three
Two
One,
we all fall down
Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust
Who
mourns Eos
Who
mourns the dawn
Who
cries for creation
When
the ending's begun
Destruction
in the birthing
Death
in the morn
Here
lies poor Eos
But
who’s left to see the dawn
The
bridges, the cities, tumbling down
The
tides are all rising, soon they’ll drown
Flora
and fauna move to reclaim
They’ll
never think of the human race
Three
Two
One,
we all fall down
Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust
A
mad man, a trigger, missiles fly
No
time for a question, time to hide
The
mushrooms are growing, cloud the sun
There’s
nowhere, there's nowhere, left to run
Three
Two
One,
we all fall down
Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust
Who
mourns Eos
Who
mourns the dawn
Who
cries for creation
When
the ending's begun
Destruction
in the birthing
Death
in the morn
Here
lies poor Eos
But
who’s left to see the dawn
A
moment, a minute, all we are
And
there is so much black 'tween the stars
The
lesson left unlearned to survive
It’s
much harder to live than to die
Three
Two
One,
we all fall down
Ashes
to ashes, dust to dust
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