Dead In The Water

When I first heard this piece back in 2002, when it was released, I assumed it was about the WW2 battle at "Dunkirk" in 1940. A fight against the cancer of fascism.

The figurative expression: 'Dead in the Water' is from the 19th Century. Where it was used to describe a ship, come to a dead stop. Later this changed to mean a ship who's engine had died: rendering it motionless. In the 20th Century the phrase came to mean a hopeless position. (And where we have no reason or choice to hope, we must act in faith).

Lines like, "Armageddon sky" and "The killer angel eyes", led me to think it was about the ships and the planes in dog fights that were part of the epic rescue mission, known as "Operation" Dynamo, that took place at Dunkirk in 1940.

I had assumed the "standing in line", referred to the long lines of thousand sof soldiers on the beach waiting to load on to the ships. Many of which were civilisan vessels that had of their own volition sailed directly into harms well to save their fellow country men and human creatures. Lines such as: "The color and the creed", "The crackle on the mic", and the key line "Its like the old man said", seemed to me referencing this event.

However, looking into twenty years later, (in 2024), it seems the songs relates mostly to Grey's father's actual battle with Cancer. And whilst Grey has said in interviews that the album contains anti-religious sentiment in some of the pieces on the "A New Day At Midnight" album, he does not specifically cite this piece.

For example, in one interview, and when asked about "Dead In the Water":

"I was having these mad conversations," Gray said, rubbing his hand across the stubble on his face. "He was very sick, and you get into this strange thing of once cancer rears its ugly head, you never get a straight answer. [You hear,] 'The test results will be in next week,' and you're foolishly hoping it's going to be good news, but you never quite get ..."

Gray paused to collect his thoughts...

"Anyway, there was lots of that going on, while everything was going incredibly well in another way," he continued. "The songs I was writing back then, there's a lot of that emotion running through them. That's the core of this record, there's no point pretending otherwise..."

So, the song is about battling against what seems an impossible position. And makes use of a phrase that some had come to use in that light. Its possible Grey's father had used it himself, or someone around Grey. Or that he found it to be an expression that encapsulated his feelings at that time.

The like "A simple act of faith" however, in this piece, could well be taken as indicative of the need to have faith, when all else seems lost, generally or statistically speaking.

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