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The people's key
Ringing through arena seats
The black machine
Played it all from memory
A fever dream
Well, I'll come back eventually
To wade into the water
Another and another
We go
Form some kind of code
The bodies float
And form some kind of code
The bodies float
Someone's out to know
Papa hobo
Don't hide your eyes
Mother mountain
Don't kill your unborn child
His day is coming
His day is coming
A question burns
Beneath the centuries of dirt
That voice you've heard
Well, every head's a different world
Well, mine's concerned
I boarded up the windows
A catatonic plateau
A backwards black-faced minstrel show
So just let me go
The prisoner moans
Oh, just let me go
The prisoner moans
No one has to know
Eva Braun went to dye her hair
Little Hitler sighs in his giant's chair
And dreamed of nowhere
And dreamed of nowhere
And dreamed
The people's key
Ringing filling everything
The theme repeats
Thinner than the galaxy
Impart to me
Your wisdom and eventually
I'll float into the ether
Another from another
We grow
Form some kind of code
A flesh at bone
We form some kind of code
A flesh at bone
No, you're not alone
History bows and it steps aside
In the jungle there's columns of purple light
We're starting over
We're starting over
We're starting
We're starting
Ringing through arena seats
The black machine
Played it all from memory
A fever dream
Well, I'll come back eventually
To wade into the water
Another and another
We go
Form some kind of code
The bodies float
And form some kind of code
The bodies float
Someone's out to know
Papa hobo
Don't hide your eyes
Mother mountain
Don't kill your unborn child
His day is coming
His day is coming
A question burns
Beneath the centuries of dirt
That voice you've heard
Well, every head's a different world
Well, mine's concerned
I boarded up the windows
A catatonic plateau
A backwards black-faced minstrel show
So just let me go
The prisoner moans
Oh, just let me go
The prisoner moans
No one has to know
Eva Braun went to dye her hair
Little Hitler sighs in his giant's chair
And dreamed of nowhere
And dreamed of nowhere
And dreamed
The people's key
Ringing filling everything
The theme repeats
Thinner than the galaxy
Impart to me
Your wisdom and eventually
I'll float into the ether
Another from another
We grow
Form some kind of code
A flesh at bone
We form some kind of code
A flesh at bone
No, you're not alone
History bows and it steps aside
In the jungle there's columns of purple light
We're starting over
We're starting over
We're starting
We're starting
Lyrics submitted by robotbears
Track duration: 04:20
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In the song " i got a reason #2 ", he alludes to a similar idea, that the satallites are the " last noah's ark ", containing what's left of a dead earth.
I also think the " columns of purple light " in the jungle, might be this noahs ark concept again, where spaceships are collecting species from the jungle, to preserve for the future.
Conor sings " I'll come back eventually ", suggesting that biological life will resurface again and again.
We grow
To form some kind of coat
Of flesh and bone
We form some kind of coat
Of flesh and bone
"Mother Mountain don't kill your unborn child" = Mother Nature, don't destroy humanity before they have had a chance to become something better than what they are. In context of global warming, tsunamis, earthquakes.
Cyberghost is pretty spot on.
"Form some kind of code of flesh and bone"
Consider how our interactions can be expressed like a computer software code interacting with the hardware (the earth). A computer chip is a series of on/off switches (good/evil? light/dark?) by which the software and the hardware speak.
"History bows and it steps aside" "another from another we grow"
In previous songs, Conor speaks of the innate instinct most animals have to let themselves die so that others may live and at the time he pondered the purpose. I think he expands on that idea with this song - that the cycle of birth to death and the progress made between each is part of that spiritual machine.
"The theme repeats, thinner than the galaxy"
This is particularly important, because while it initially appears as a contradiction or contrast, if you listen to songs like "Singularity" or are familiar with the concept (as well as quantum theory), the galaxy can be viewed as something very 'thin'.
"Papa Hobo don’t hide your eyes
Mother Mountain don’t kill your unborn child"
I'm not sure about 'Papa Hobo', but I'm fairly certain that "Mother Mountain" refers to the theory that life originally began from volcanic vents during the early stages of earth's existence.
If I'm correct, he's basically saying that the 'unborn child' is mankind and that our day is coming when we will be enlightened or 'born' and then, having finally heard that 'voice', fully aware of the depth of our existence.
These are some huge concepts he's working with, and I marvel at his ability to write about them in simple human terms, but that's always been Conor's specialty. You look at his body of work and there's a whole library of philosophies within, but this one really is a masterpiece.
The song does refer to the inherent destructive nature of man, be it inward (self-destructive: drowning yourself in water, emotional imprisonment) or outward (mass destruction: like Hitler and those tyrants who've followed and preceded him). Both regard a goal or motivation of nothingness.
The first verse refers to a piano (black machine) or rather the pianist at the piano, playing a tune without feeling, but I think the song (and really the album) is about the literal earth and all living things as a collective machine (which, scientifically, it really is) and the spirit (or 'voice') that inhabits it, even when we try to shut it out.
If you consider that voice as the People's Key - something which we all hear, most noticeably through music - it really ties everything together.
How many fans of Conor (and countless other musicians) find some sort of connection with a song even when the words don't make sense? There is some subconscious connection/understanding we all share in all things good and evil. That would be the spirit in the machine that we know as life on earth.
The People's Key (musical key that is) is the frequency of how our society and mind operates then, thus framing our reality and perceptions within it's borders.
He compares this"key" to a machine...something utterly unnatural and baring no life and also calls it a Spiritual Machine .....perhaps saying that this machine runs via the various religious beliefs etc.
"the bodies float" we live our lives in this key or frequency, using the word "float" implies that he thinks it's rather meaningless.
He then speaks about a child of a wonderer and mother Earth...saying his day is coming...clearly implying tat he feels that this "black machine"'s rein will eventually come to an end and we will live as we were meat to live.
The next two verses talk about a though or feeling rapped within his head (or perhaps all our heads) a feeling thats been locked away to return to that primal true state of living away from this reality.
The next verse paints a bleak picture of that reality.....I think in talking about Hitler (a tyrant) and saying that he was dreaming of going nowhere he is really talking abut how the world is run today... comparing current leaders with Hitler.......because other than that the reference seems abstract.
(somebody thought above that "little Hitler" was a reference to his son...it isn't..."little" is meant to contrast the "giant" chair...hes in a role that he can't handle. )
Okay....I think I might have been wrong about the "key"....it isn't as I thought earlier how society functions today but the frequency of that thought and desire to return to something natural .....makes senses now..in the first verse he says that the "key" will return eventually.....and later "the day will come"
I really should edit this.....but yeah......in short The People's Key is the desire to go back to a natural existence and The Black Machine is our current society.
In the last verse he says that history will step aside.........erase itself....and let us start building the world anew.
I'm impressed that instead, as in Wide Awake and Cassadaga, of searching for present history's anchor in the events of 9/11, Conor is picking back up on WWII/Totalitarianism in view of the growing strength of hate movements in the world.
There are many repeated themes on the album "starting over", but the light in the jungle seems like a specific thing.
It's a wonderful symbol because it's not loaded up with christian or other imagery, but totally delivers on those emotions.