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Never stop the car on a drive in the dark
Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes
Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing
Through your ears
Arriving somewhere but not here
Could you imagine the final sound as a gun
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out
Was a song?
Arriving somewhere but not here
[Chorus:]
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams, sacrificed
Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught
Ever thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?
Arriving somewhere but not here
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams...
Did you see the redness block your part?
Did the scissors cut a way to your heart?
Did you feel the end before the suns of mothers
Tearing you apart?
Arriving somewhere but not here
Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes
Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing
Through your ears
Arriving somewhere but not here
Could you imagine the final sound as a gun
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out
Was a song?
Arriving somewhere but not here
[Chorus:]
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams, sacrificed
Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught
Ever thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?
Arriving somewhere but not here
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams...
Did you see the redness block your part?
Did the scissors cut a way to your heart?
Did you feel the end before the suns of mothers
Tearing you apart?
Arriving somewhere but not here
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To die far from achieving your dreams and goals (lyrics All my designs, simplified, and all of my plans, compromised, and all of my dreams, sacrificed)
To never rest so you're not among the dead but neither are you among the living. (lyrics Could you imagine the final sound as a gun Or the smashing windscreen of a car? Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out Was a song?)
To look and recognize at your friends and family only to find that they can't even see you (lyricsNever stop the car on a drive in the dark Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing Through your ears)
And to make efforts to remember how you became a ghost in the first place (lyrics Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught Ever thought from here on in your life begins And all you knew was wrong? Did you see the redness block your part? Did the scissors cut a way to your heart? Did you feel the end before the suns of mothers Tearing you apart?
Its very sad truth about earthbound spirits. But sad messages and beautiful songs tend to go hand-and-hand, so nice job Porcupine Tree!
To me, this is a deeply existentialist song, about finding your way and meaning in life.
The title: "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" refers to the fact that every step you make in life leads you somewhere, but you don't know where. "Not here" means that if you follow your way, you will not end up "here" where all the others are, because your way is only yours.
"Never stop the car on a drive in the dark" – on your way ("drive") there will be some dark places, sad moments, moments when you will want to give up ("the dark"), but you should never do that ("never stop").
"Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes" – if your life is to have true meaning, you have to find it yourself. Nobody can do it for you, not even your mother.
"All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams, sacrificed"
To me, this very vividly describes an existential crisis.
"Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught"
On your search, you often "regress" to an earlier stage – after a prolonged time of searching, you may find out you have discovered nothing at all. It may also happen that although you have reached a "higher" level and you know what to do, it is actually hard to bring it in practice. It is not easy to act against the expectations of others or to get rid of past habits you have been conditioned to believe were right ("drinking down the poison the way you were taught").
"Ever thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?"
When you reach a certain step of progress, you see your past experiences from a different perspective. You have a feeling you know "what all this is about" and you are free – this may be desribed as "the true beginning of your life".
Also, many perfectionists try to do things ideally and when they fail at it, they often say to themselves: "From tommorow, everything is going to be ideal." and discard all the past as unperfect and "deny" it ("all you knew is wrong") – this would be the more pessimistic interpretation.
A lot of lines do not fit this interpretation at all, these are just my feelings when I listen to this song.
"Did you feel the end before the suns of mothers"
should instead be
"Did you feel the endings of the sons and mothers"
All my designs, simplified is basically saying all of his plans are not finished! if you died on the spot would you be able to finish that song you were writing? that one invention? that painting?
All of my plans, compromised means that all of his current plans were settled by others than himself. Because you are dead and not able to finish your plans of course.
All of my dreams, sacrificed is an easy one to figure out! your dreams have been put away because you are dead and therefor cannot reach your dream anymore. This song really makes me think about stoping the car on a drive in the dark and then a man shoots a gun threw the windshield killing you. You have no idea that you would die. You are looking forward to waking up the next day and continuing reaching your goals and finishing your designs but out of the darkness a man with a black mask walks up to your car and kills you. You weren't expecting this because the cars was locked and you feel safe behind the glass but you never really know when your going to die.
This is just my interpretation.. all in all this is a very sad, deep, and emotional song but has great meaning behind it however you interpret it!
The sound of the impact of a car with a solid object would be very similar in volume and sharpness to a gunshot, hence the addition of the next line:
"Or the smashing windscreen of a car?"
"Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out
Was a song?"
As someone else said - a radio continuing to play after the car has crashed. It could also refer to this song playing out to the driver before they "[faded] out."
"All my designs, simplified"
Okay, I'll pull back for this one. I have an idea of what it means, but I have no idea how to articulate it. But it sounds as though the identity of the speaker becomes clear here - to me it sounds like the speaker is the person who was killed by the drunk driver.
"And all of my plans, compromised
And all of my dreams, sacrificed"
This part is what tells me the speaker is the victim of the driver. Rather than asking the accusing questions of the verses, the speaker begins to lament at the fact that their life as they know it is over. Their dreams have been 'sacrificed' due to the actions of somebody else.
"Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught?"
These two lines, as well as the two that follow, refer to the time the driver begins to drink. Alcohol is arguably a part of today's culture - people in this society tend to view it as a 'coming of age' drink, whereas this song positions us to see it as something toxic. The driver consumes this 'poison' because that is all he or she has known.
"Ever thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?"
I'm not sure about the first line here, but the second seems tinged with regret and sudden realisation. The speaker asks the driver if they have ever come to realise that doing what they have been taught (ie. "drinking down the poison") is not always the right thing to do. Considering the driver has just killed someone while under the influence... evidently not.
"Did you see the redness block your part?
Did the scissors cut a way to your heart?"
Post-accident surgery seems the most obvious one, though the scissors could be a representation of guilt.
"Did you feel the envy for the sons of mothers
Tearing you apart?"
The envy tearing the driver apart is envy coming from others, envy for a boy that still has his mother while someone else's has been violently taken away. Now the identity of the speaker and the driver become a little more obvious here - this line seems to suggest that the driver was a young man, possibly a boy in late teens, and the person he killed (the speaker) was a woman and mother.
I obviously can't say this interpretation is the correct one, this is just how the song sounds to me. Feel free to add to or challenge this theory if you want.
"Never stop the car on a drive in the dark"
As somebody said, a person possibly pulled over and was hit by a drunk driver, but I'm leaning towards the idea that this line is slightly ironic. 'Stop' could refer to the general lack of motion of a car after it has crashed.
"Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes"
The lines and questions in this song seem to communicate a sort of lesson to be taught, which leads me to believe they are directed at the drunk driver. This line, for example, can refer to the way one seeks comfort and justification from their mother, despite the mother knowing that what their child has done is wrong.
"Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing through your ears"
Potential blood during an accident? Or it could possible be actual rain. Who knows.
"Arriving somewhere but not here"
Every place the driver has come to was not the one he or she intended to go. Someone else here explained that 'somewhere' is a reference to death, while 'here' refers to the place the driver is actually supposed to be.
Okay.... I have a place to get to, so I'll try and analyse the rest of the song when I get more time.
"arriving somewhere but not here" means like you are being in a situation facing yourself, facing your background, your context, your paradigms, etc...The first verse makes me think on a very straight person: "never stop the car in the dark", so he never stop to perhaps look around or stay in silence and think - "never trust the sound of rain", so, it's sort of someone mentally structured, who doesn't take risks.
Then, probably his or her life changes with a close to death accident. "all my designs, simplified", from now on, this person takes life easier, doesn't make it more complicated...this turn on the lyric content has it's musical complement. That nice acoustic guitar gives you the feeling that you are free...that you broke a chain, something that was tying you. Anyway, I guess that's a way to interpret it.
Deadwing is an album written to either accompany or replace a script for the movie deadwing, which is currently a project trying to get off the ground. The details of the lyric meanings have been heavily guarded by the band as they don't want to ruin the plot. But..
It was let slip at a concert that one of the deadwing songs was about a conversation between son and mother, where the mother is speaking from the grave. Add in the fact that the lyrics/script have been heavily influenced by Hitchcock and Kubrik, I'm thinking the mother is an antagonist....
Never stop the car on a drive in the dark
Never look for the truth in your mother's eyes
Never trust the sound of rain upon a river rushing
Through your ears
[looks like a scene from the movie, possibly a car crash into a river, and she was intoxicated somehow, causing it..]
Arriving somewhere but not here
[ wishing he hadn't been born from her ]
Could you imagine the final sound as a gun
Or the smashing windscreen of a car?
Did you ever imagine the last thing you'd hear as you're fading out
Was a song?
[ he asks if she can hear him, if she thought she would have died differently ]
Chorus:
All my designs, simplified
And all of my plans, comprimised
And all of my dreams, sacrificed
[ everything ruined because of his mother ]
Ever had the feeling you've been here before?
Drinking down the poison the way you were taught
Ever thought from here on in your life begins
And all you knew was wrong?
[ he is speaking to himself here, forced to the drink like she was, and has suffer her past, wishing he could start over ]
Did you see the redness block your part?
Did the scissors cut a way to your heart?
Did you feel the end before the sons of mothers
Tearing you apart?
[ hospital bed scene, blood clot maybe, and the irony of sons who came from good mothers now get to cut into her ]