I,
I am feeling like a veteran,
uncompensated for the blood i've left to pool on foreign grounds,
and I,
sometimes reach to rub at aching legs,
but they've been dust for over a decade,
and you're the limb i've lost but somehow I still feel it...

Until I awake,
we just hope that you made it,
we hope that you're celebrating,
with people you miss,
and burning like a beacon,
guiding our ship around this hellish shoal,
i'm happy to admit that maybe I am a little depressed,
cause i'm missing you to death.

And now,
it's only records of my memory,
some little thing you gave posthumously,
the details all dragged out,
to think,
of all the paitings we would be without,
if Van Gogh had gone and died face down from loss of blood the night he went and hacked his ear off...

Until I awake,
we just hope that you made it,
we hope that you're celebrating,
with people you miss,
and burning like a beacon,
guiding our ship around this hellish shoal,
i'm happy to admit that maybe I am a little depressed,
cause i'm missing you to death.

Until I awake,
we just hope that you made it,
we hope you're as decorated,
as the day that you left,
and burning like a beacon,
guiding our ship around this hellish shoal,
i'm happy to admit that maybe I am a little depressed,
cause i'm missing you to death.



Lyrics submitted by tjwells


Untitled 04 song meanings
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71 Comments

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  • 0
    Lyric Correction:I believe he's saying "sheol", not "shoal". While shoal half makes sense, sheol means pit/abyss (Hebrew) and that makes much more sense to me. He says "she-ole", not "sho-ahl" ...
    Flag avegannerdon February 17, 2011   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:"You're the limb I've lost but somehow I still feel." To be literal, what this means is like a phantom pain. Literally, people who lose a limb can (but not necessarily) feel random pains in places where they no longer have a body part. To apply it to the song, I think it means someone leaves and you'd expect that their absence would take away all thoughts and feelings of them, but it didn't. Also, it most likely is "hellish shoal." That makes the most sense. The only other thing it could sound like is "hellish hole," which makes less sense.
    Flag crazykaityon March 06, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I don't suppose anyone has considered it's a play on words?

    Sheol being the underworld (More or less), and shoal being hazardous to ships.

    It could be both. He's using the ship metaphor because it sounds like shoal, but for those who look deeper, especially given the "hellish" before it, the shoal itself is a metaphor of sorts, and a near homophone, of Sheol, the place people go when they die.

    Listening to this song, I imagined that the person the song is about is dead, and the pain was so great it lead the person singing the song to attempt suicide. Blood left to pool on foreign ground (And to an extent the later part about Van Gogh lying face down dead), he slit his wrists trying to escape a world that feels alien to him without the person he lost. "You're the limb I lost but somehow I still feel" is pretty self explanatory. Going to feel his legs is wanting to see or talk to the deceased, but then he remembers they're dead. They don't feel gone, but then he snaps back to reality and realizes they really are.

    "Until I awake" is that he's in a coma after the attempted suicide, and maybe he's having some sort of fantastical dream about the dead person, realizing maybe they're happier wherever they are now and maybe they really are still looking down on him guiding him through life, and suddenly he doesn't want to die anymore, so he sees the one he lost guiding him around the "hellish shoal/Sheol" because they want him to live his life because he has so much left to give, hence the Van Gogh line. He's sad that he lost this person he was so close to ("I'm a little depressed"), but in this comatose state after attempting suicide ("I'm missing you to death") he realizes that life still goes on, that person isn't really gone, and though he'll miss them, he has this new found appreciation for life ("I'm happy to admit")


    The "I hope you're as decorated as the day that you left" could definitely mean it's a decorated war hero that died, but it could also be interpreted as simply how dressed up and peaceful people look at wakes, all the make up, and flowers all around them, that type of thing.

    That's what I got out of the song, anyway...I actually thought this all up in ~20 minutes, though, so it's bound to be flawed.
    Flag JesusHowardChriston October 16, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:easily the best of the unreleased demos in my opinion. REALLY wish they'd do a master version.
    Flag RyanItsBenon August 17, 2009   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:Going to interpret this as it pertains to a situation i"m going through right now.
    The Veteran bit at the beginning is talking about how the protagonist worked his ass off in a relationship, and is "uncompensated," as he feels his love is ultimately unrequited, or at least not returned in the magnitude that he gives it.

    The protagonist's significant other goes away/back home, he lies awake hoping she made it, hoping she's celebrating with people she's missed. She gets dragged into a "hellish sheol" of bad decisions/sins, ends up fucking up, whether it's breaking a promise or cheating on the protagonist, or both.

    The first few lines of the next verse is him brooding on what she's done, but he realizes everyone makes mistakes and the potential growth of the relationship is something worth holding on for.

    wow, i'm stretching. not even gonna finsih.

    Flag J-Moneyon July 06, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:the chorus to this song got me through so damn much. i wish they'd release a mastered version, this song has too much potential to not be finished. they'll never do it though :(
    Flag SubtleAsABrickon April 30, 2009   Link
  • 0
    My Opinion:So damn good.
    Flag soundinmylungson March 08, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:it does sound like there's a connection between this and guernica.
    so "fightoffyourdemons" don't be such an ass.
    there might be a connection, but then again there might not be.
    just chill
    Flag xXEmpty_InsideXxon December 23, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:i thought it was hellish shore.
    i dunno, i just thought that made sense cause a ship?
    haha
    Flag JoeyMcChipmunkon October 26, 2008   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:It's about his grandfather that died and how he hopes that he's happy and in Heaven.
    Flag You'll be a memoryon September 04, 2008   Link

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