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We sent out the SOS call
It was a quarter past 4 in the morning
When the storm broke our second anchor line
Four months at sea 4 months of calm seas to be pounded
In the shallows off the tip of montauk point
They call them rogues they travel fast and alone
One hundred foot faces of God's good ocean gone wrong
What they call love is a risk
Cause you will always get hit out of nowhere by some wave and end up on your own
The hole in the hull defied the crews attempts to bail us out
And flooded the engines and radio and half buried bow
Your tongue is a rudder
It steers the whole ships sends your words past your lips
Or keeps them safe behind your teeth
But the wrong words will strand you
Come off course while you sleep
Sweep your boat out to sea or dashed to bits on the reefs
The vessel groans the ocean pressures its frame
Off the port I see the lighthouse through the sleet and the rain
And I wished for one more day to give my love and repay debts
But the morning finds our bodies washed up thirty miles west
They say that the captain stays fast with the ship through still and storm
But this ain't the Dakota and the water is cold
We won't have to fight for long this is the end
This story's old but it goes on and on until we disappear
Calm me and let me taste the salt you breathed while you were underneath
I am the one who haunts your dreams of mountains sunk below the sea
I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean
I know this is what you want
A funeral keeps both of us apart
You know that you are not alone
Need you like water in my lungs
This is the end
It was a quarter past 4 in the morning
When the storm broke our second anchor line
Four months at sea 4 months of calm seas to be pounded
In the shallows off the tip of montauk point
They call them rogues they travel fast and alone
One hundred foot faces of God's good ocean gone wrong
What they call love is a risk
Cause you will always get hit out of nowhere by some wave and end up on your own
The hole in the hull defied the crews attempts to bail us out
And flooded the engines and radio and half buried bow
Your tongue is a rudder
It steers the whole ships sends your words past your lips
Or keeps them safe behind your teeth
But the wrong words will strand you
Come off course while you sleep
Sweep your boat out to sea or dashed to bits on the reefs
The vessel groans the ocean pressures its frame
Off the port I see the lighthouse through the sleet and the rain
And I wished for one more day to give my love and repay debts
But the morning finds our bodies washed up thirty miles west
They say that the captain stays fast with the ship through still and storm
But this ain't the Dakota and the water is cold
We won't have to fight for long this is the end
This story's old but it goes on and on until we disappear
Calm me and let me taste the salt you breathed while you were underneath
I am the one who haunts your dreams of mountains sunk below the sea
I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean
I know this is what you want
A funeral keeps both of us apart
You know that you are not alone
Need you like water in my lungs
This is the end
Lyrics submitted by BrandNew1208, edited by Deafcat
Track duration: 05:28
"Play Crack the Sky" as written by Jesse Lacey
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Anyways, the song is called play crack the sky because of a joke – he and his friend went to a concert and recognized one of the singers in a band from a previous band in which he had a cool song called crack the sky. Jesse and his friend – being the only ones at the concert – got a kick out of it, and his friend yelled “Play crack the sky!” to the guy on stage.
Most of their song titles are jokes in disguise. I watched many interviews on youtube in which they let this slip.
More briefly, this song is about death. More specifically, I believe it’s about his father, who was a fisherman (I believe). This song is immensely personal, I’m not sure we can really get a concrete meaning, but that’s the basic interpretation.
4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,[a] and set on fire by hell.[b] 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers,[c] these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
As Jesse says, this is a song about dying/death. I think he is using the waves as hardships in relationships, our tongue (the words we choose to use) can either shipwreck those relationships or help us navigate through hardships. Jesse (or a fictitious character he has created) probably has regrets about how he has used his words, he may have had a friend die (possibly by drowning) and wishes he had the chance to make it right "And I wished for one more day to give my love and repay debts". Now the memory of this friend haunts him and he is left saying "I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean".
The moral of the song is: death can catch us by surprise, we may die or someone close to us may die. Be careful how you use your words because you will not be able to undo the course they set you on.
The real meaning of the verse, however, is that words are the most powerful thing in the world, God caused everything to come into existence. Since we are made in his likeness and bear his image, our words too have power to a lesser extent. Power to lift others up or break them down. In later verses James says that the words we use expose the state of our hearts. If you're using wisdom that comes naturally to people you're depraved and blind and that will be made evident through your words. On the other hand, if your wisdom is "from above", in other words, you are no longer blind in your sin but have been liberated by Jesus Christ your words will reflect that reality.
The solemnity of the song makes it easy to see how it's more about the death of a friend more so than a "death" of a relationship. I believe the death he is alluding to is a suicide. I'd say it's about someone who drowned themselves, but that seems a little too obvious.
at first there's the SOS call which right away tells us something terrible is happening or about to happen, then
"Four months at sea 4 months of calm seas to be pounded"
- everything was smooth sailing (haha) but then there was a disturbance out at sea, something that shook up his life/the ship he's on.
"What they call love is a risk / Cause you will always get hit out of nowhere by some wave and end up on your own"
- this tells me that he maybe wasn't in this ship alone but the storm (depression, perhaps) made these waves that stole the other person away from him, by destroying the ship or sending the person steering the ship to be doomed and to drown. The [relation/friend]ship is also damaged (due to the other half being dead) and now Jesse is doomed to sink too.
"Your tongue is a rudder / It steers the whole ship sends your words past your lips / Or keeps them safe behind your teeth"
- This is one of my favourite lines. I think it may represent the other person saying things like "i'm okay" when they weren't or keeping silent. It also points out that the other person is the captain on this ship. The movement of words represents the ship's course:
"But the wrong words will strand you /Come off course while you sleep / Sweep your boat out to sea or dashed to bits on the reefs"
- seeing as their ship, well, fucked, the "wrong words" may have something to do with their outcome - perhaps a fight, or a suicide note? Maybe the other person isolated themselves which resulted in his/her demise.
"And I wished for one more day to give my love and repay debts / But the morning finds our bodies washed up thirty miles west"
- he sees the lighthouse, which is a beacon of hope for him on this boat that may not make it through the storm stirred up by his friend/lover. The captain of the ship didn't see it apparently, because instead of trying to get to the lighthouse it cuts to an image of them both dead, but since Jesse is talking about in retrospect, it can be implied that he ended up surviving, unless his dead being is telling the story (highly improbable).
"They say that the captain stays fast with the ship through still and storm / But this ain't the Dakota and the water is cold / We won't have to fight for long this is the end"
- This part is another one of my favourites. He's saying that the captain isn't supposed to abandon ship and stay with it til the last minute, but this isn't the Dakota - the steamship that crashed into a reef and everyone evacuated the ship casualty-free because it was so close to shore - they're in cold waters that will kill them quickly; they won't have to fight death for much longer. This is the end.
SO THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE SO FAR: a ship stirred by person x, calm seas, a storm out of nowhere and him referencing to ending up alone, the person failing to get them to safety, them stuck in cold water about to die (very titanic-esque) and their bodies washing up on shore. Since he is able to tell this story we must assume that he is alive and person x is dead. Since person x was the captain of the ship, they are to blame for this.
"This story's old but it goes on and on until we disappear / calm me and let me taste the salt you breathed when you were underneath"
- referring to this story and the memory which will exist until they're gone - completely gone, dead and with no memory of them left.
"I am the one who haunts your dreams of mountains sunk below the sea / I spoke the words but never gave a thought to what they all could mean"
- Now, I feel like this part is from person x's point of view - he/she haunts Jesse's dreams of a world underwater. He DID nearly drown so he has dreams/nightmares of that moment and sees person X in them. Person x acknowledges that he or she is the one who sunk the ship by admitting that she/he said things without thinking about the consequence - and we already know that this person's "tongue steers the whole ship".
and then we're back to Jesse's POV
"I know that this is what you want"
This is evidence that if this song is about death, the death is a suicide. Person X wanted to drown/kill themselves, which is why the calm seas were like the calm before the storm, and person X is said to be stirring the ship. There's an unaddressed reason as to why Jesse survived and why the person intended it to be that way.
"A funeral keeps both of us apart"
- if they were both dead, they'd be together (think Romeo and Juliet) but the funeral keeps them apart meaning that one is dead and the other isn't. He wants them to be together which is why the line
"Need you like water in my lungs"
- No one needs water in their lungs unless they want to die. Alas, he wants to be with person x who is dead which says that he wouldn't mind dying to be with this person. Need you/need death to be with you/need you like I need death/need you like water in my lungs. It's especially heartbreaking because the person drowned, at least in a metaphorical sense.
I think the tone of this song is a lot like Poison Oak by Bright Eyes. I really don't think it's about a romantic relationship ending, though it's always possible it's about a lover's suicide.
I am the one who haunts your dreams of mountains
sunk beneath the sea
this line has such a powerful image that goes with it and i wonder every time i hear this song if someone else gets this empty feeling in them like i do.
Like a tumultuous, bipolar relationship...
dreams of a bright future with the one you love...
but always fighting, always arguing.
The smooth sailing, of loving times, towards a happy ending
hit by rogue waves, terrifyingly powerful arguments...
- ultimately ending in despair and giving up on life all together.
"I need you like water in my lungs" is slightly depressing, but a testament to the idea that he/she does not need the other person and this relationship will be the death of them. Just like water in your lungs will kill you.
I'm not sure I buy the assertion someone made that "Play Crack the Sky" is a reference to lightning. I also tend to think there's no way it refers to the rock band named Crack the Sky.
However, there is a song (and album) of that title released in '87 by this guy named Mylon LeFevre. The lyrics run thus:
"Sometimes at night I close my eyes and wish,
Sometimes I wonder if I'd ever be missed if you came for me,
If you came for me.
I've never asked you for a whole lot of things,
I've never begged you for the riches of kings,
But I've one request and I hold it up to you...
Come on and crack the sky for me,
Come on and crack the sky and take me home,
Take me home,
Come on and crack the sky for me,
Come on and crack the sky and take me home,
Take me home tonight.
I know you've got me where you want me to be,
I know you've got a plan to use in me but I long for you,
I long for you.
So, now I'll work until you're ready for me,
I don't know if I can guarantee that I'll never cry, never try to get to you.
Come on and crack the sky for me,
Come on and crack the sky and take me home,
Take me home,
Come on and crack the sky for me,
Come on and crack the sky and take me home,
Take me home tonight."
So, I'm thinking that's what the title alludes to. It kind of applies to the literal level of the narrative given by the lyrics; sailors who are facing their death. All that's left for him is for God to "crack the sky and take me home tonight." "Play 'Crack the Sky'" in particular, to me is sort of like a dying wish, the song he would want played at his funeral, or the song he would like to hear as he dies.
Utmost apologies if all of that has been gone through before, there are so many comments for this that I could never read them all to see. And of course that interpretation of the title is up for debate. But it makes way more sense to me than any other attempts I've seen to nail down what Lacey meant with it.
However it has nothing at all to do with Jesse liking the song, or wanting it at his funeral or anything, actually the title is just intended to be a really obscure in-joke sort of thing. I've got a recording of one of his solo shows where he explains the story behind the title, I'll try and paraphrase it as best I can 'cause he goes off on a huge parallel story about it!
Basically, Jesse and John Nolan (of TBS) both went to christian school together, so John Nolan in particular was into a lot of christian metal. So he knew this Mylon LeFevre guy's band, whos only big 'hit' song was Crack the Sky. Jesse then goes on to say, when him and John had a band together in high school, they had a job working as stage-hands, for a christian group that toured round shopping centres etc and had musical performances and also people doing religious stuff, preaching to people or whatever. And in exchange for helping to set the stage up, they allowed Jesse and John's band to do a half hour set. But Jesse says he found it funny, because of all the 'bible thumpers' (Jesse's words, not mine... ha) nobody ever wanted to go near the stage, so the bands ended up just playing to nobody.
So, one time after they'd finished setting up, Jesse and John went out and just sat in the middle of this empty car park that the stage was in to see how funny it was watching the band playing to no one. And when the guy came on, John realised that he recognised the singer, and it was the Mylon LeFevre dude. Now Jesse explains that this guy had grown up, obviously grown out of his christian metal phase, and was clearly just trying to start over and, like, re-invent himself as a new musician/person even. Trying just to forget about the past stuff.
But John stands up, from the middle of the empty car park and shouts - just as the guy was stepping up to the mic - "Hey, play 'Crack the Sky!' ". Jesse says that you could just see the guy's spirit break, that the only person around in the whole place was someone who recognised him from his old life. Jesse says that for some reason, this was about the funniest thing he had ever witnessed.
So that's the story behind it! Ha. That's taken from one of Jesse Lacey's solo shows, in Jackson MS in 07 . I downloaded it all from somewhere if you want to find it, him telling the story is pretty funny, much better than my far too long written description =p