The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
A twisted crash, vibrations forming my personal currency
A lifeline, a sweatbox, the linear mind as one
Who would have thought?
This distant face
Distant life, never before seen
Deep sleep in deep sea. Nerves are torn from their ends
It has been three nights and still the puzzle is cut by a shaky hand
Carved out of improper materials, imperfect directions
A crushing sound soon awakes. Where am I?
The taste of sand wipes away the grime of my past life, the life I fled, the grip I loosened
It has all caused an even pressure. The kind they show us on our screens
I've become what I've force fed my entire life, a drifter's dream, a loner's mind
Wanting what they have, their perfect smiles and heartless lusts
On night four they come back
Awaking a new life. Over and over, like I've been there before
Living and breathing, but still choking
A mirror stares back. I contort like the wheels in my head, still nothing happens
Please wake up
I open my eyes to the smell of morning skin
The soft touch of your hair
Your breath I breathe in
The reality chases and catches up on actual alertness
I'm awake, a daydream, alone. Silence
This is the last few years rolled into one instance
I need something new
I jerk back in and out of a daydream self
A backwards day
Water surrounds
A cool breeze wrapping its smell around my skin
The midday siren awakes what was a false idea of sleep
Daydream society. Walking past what we used to see
Beginning again
(The runners come to a halt. The air seems half full)
Walking into a certain state of suffocation
Confusion surrounds, day after day
The questions I face, the dealings I deal
Do I complete me? Do I complete humanity?
This day will determine it all
Mirror stares back again. I contort like the wheels in my head
Still nothing happens
Please wake up
Please wake me up
A lifeline, a sweatbox, the linear mind as one
Who would have thought?
This distant face
Distant life, never before seen
Deep sleep in deep sea. Nerves are torn from their ends
It has been three nights and still the puzzle is cut by a shaky hand
Carved out of improper materials, imperfect directions
A crushing sound soon awakes. Where am I?
The taste of sand wipes away the grime of my past life, the life I fled, the grip I loosened
It has all caused an even pressure. The kind they show us on our screens
I've become what I've force fed my entire life, a drifter's dream, a loner's mind
Wanting what they have, their perfect smiles and heartless lusts
On night four they come back
Awaking a new life. Over and over, like I've been there before
Living and breathing, but still choking
A mirror stares back. I contort like the wheels in my head, still nothing happens
Please wake up
I open my eyes to the smell of morning skin
The soft touch of your hair
Your breath I breathe in
The reality chases and catches up on actual alertness
I'm awake, a daydream, alone. Silence
This is the last few years rolled into one instance
I need something new
I jerk back in and out of a daydream self
A backwards day
Water surrounds
A cool breeze wrapping its smell around my skin
The midday siren awakes what was a false idea of sleep
Daydream society. Walking past what we used to see
Beginning again
(The runners come to a halt. The air seems half full)
Walking into a certain state of suffocation
Confusion surrounds, day after day
The questions I face, the dealings I deal
Do I complete me? Do I complete humanity?
This day will determine it all
Mirror stares back again. I contort like the wheels in my head
Still nothing happens
Please wake up
Please wake me up
Lyrics submitted by Hypersleeper, edited by Mathos22
Specular Reflection Lyrics as written by Cartland Blake Richardson Daniel Hanford Briggs
Lyrics © BTBAM PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
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Paul and Dan both said in interviews that the 1st character is the same person from Swim to the moon and the other is a character on a different planet facing the same realization about his/her society and wants to get away.
as for the deeper meaning, I'm still thinking about this.
I'll do my best with what I got from this.
This continues the story told by Swim to the Moon.
Prospect 1: He landed on a desert island, happy to be away. But eventually he misses society, in spite of its imperfections. There's inhabitants that do like... experiments on him. And he wants to 'wake up.'
Prospect 2: He wakes up. Leaving society was just a dream. He's incredibly confused, but has a plan.
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My interpretation is different. Similar to Sun of Nothing and Swim to the Moon (alkongside alot of their other lyric's), both these characters, particularly prospect 1 are tired of a repetitive society, so in a way your desert island refers to their inability to connect too their respective societys. Since this and the upcoming full length album are going to be concept albums, i think we cannot make comnplete judgements about this song yet because so much is yet to be built for these characters platforms. <br /> <br /> Also the spacey/sciencey names of the songs (alongside the album name parallax) suggests to me that somekind of wormhole connects these two characters and that they are the same person seperated by space and time, yet connected somewhat mentally (working with the constant drifting in and out of consciousness).<br /> <br /> This EP is incredible and blows my mind.IM SEEING THESE GUYS IN BERLIN! <br /> <br /> exciting for me cause im an aussie and they have come here once X-D
Actually, I do think Prospect 1 does continue from Swim to the Moon... Perhaps, since Tommy stated Swim and Sun of Nothing are companion songs, Prospect 2 is the man from SoN, but I'm not really sure how that works, considering he throws himself into the sun... but perhaps there was some type of temporal disruption that cast him back to life: "The reality chases and catches up on actual alertness. I'm awake. A daydream, alone; silence."
His space ship turned out to be a boat. The boat from swim to the moon turned out to be a space ship. This all seems too well planned out...
The lyrics are confusing, but I think it's almost definite that at least ONE of these men is from Swim to the Moon.
Well lyrically Son of Nothing really just implied a mental state of drifting and loneliness, VERY similar to Pink Floyd's the Wall in my opinion... Swim to the Moon also was it's own concrete entity, but I do believe this is a reintroduction of both stories in a more story driven "this is actually happening in the context of the album" sense. Prequel to the Sequel as well as Lost Perfection (a and b) are also evident, but again, it seems like a reintroduction, rather than a continuation. Also Ants of the Sky is in there in the venturing through the new land. Unfortunately with almost all of their old songs, they didn't really have a concrete single idea. For both albums and songs. The Great Misdirect was really the first album of theirs I really saw as a story driven concept album. But as for individual songs, Ants of the Sky had crazy venturings through the world, and then turned into Tommy wondering if what he wrote was even good enough (then turned into a hoedown) Lost Perfection had a really cool story, the end of the world and a baby being born during it, but it also had Tommy singing about how he, and the other guys were bored on the tour bus...<br /> <br /> However, I think Lost Perfection (and really Prequel to the Sequel, as it is a prequel to it) are the most relevant to the story element of this album. The rest have more musical relevance (I love how they do that!!!) But Lost Perfection states the apocalypse in which this world is now a victim. <br /> <br /> MY spin on the story (it probably isn't right) is that prospect 1 has been sent out on some sort of mission to try and save the Earth as a baby, and the first lines of the album are that ship crashing on a distant planet. Eventually Prospect 1 is met by self reflective pasts as well as the desire to get back home. Anyway, Prospect 1 devises a way to signal the outside world, which works. Prospect 2, all along through the album is on his ship (he is the one who talks too much from Lost Perfection, no doubt on that one) his self reflective journey is both literal and figurative, as he heads to Prospect 1, who is still stuck on this distant planet. (Hypersleep for prospect 1 is the initial time wasted sleeping underwater in the ship remnants of the ship, while for Prospect 2 is the time spent asleep in the ship on the way to prospect 1. (The siren of loneliness is prospect 1's signal to prospect 2) Finally in Lunar Wilderness, Prospect 2 lands on the planet, and awakes after many hours in hypersleep, reflecting on the apocalypse. Some horrifying realization is swept over prospect 2 (could prospect 2 not be on the right planet, could prospect 1 have died in prospect 2's crash? They've done a great job of leaving it open for interpretation, unfortunately that makes this entire interpretation open to be completely wrong and flawed...but these are the thoughts I've got going on about it thus far.)
So I read an interview today. Prospect 1 IS directly from Swim to the Moon, and is on planet Earth, in which he goes out to sea on a suicide mission. (same story) now I see where they were going here, I still think the ship sank and he creates a device to get the attention of Prospect 2. Prospect 2 is the character who talks to much yaddayadda, apocalypse at the end of the world is still true, it's not yet explained if these characters share the same dimension or if the planet prospect 2 is from is Earth, maybe Prospect 2 did simply just time travel from one Earth point to another and the horrible realization seen is prospect 2's realization that he's still on the planet Earth and can't change anything, even though he's reflected on this moment all album.
I would greatly appreciate the link to that interview! I'm glad to know I at least guessed some of this right. And the Lost Perfections and Prequel to the Sequel definitely are playing around in here.
NOPE sorry bro you are completely wrong about everything. I am not saying I know exactly what the deep meaning is but i know it is not what you wrote. This EP is a completely separate concept album. The concept is two people living on different worlds lightyears away, they come upon the same occurences in life and do things to change the course of their lives. the Prospects are not different states of mind of one individual, the prospect 1 is one individual and prospect 2 is a completely separate individual. you can tell this from the music itself because every time it changes prospects the music makes a transition. if you dont believe me you can look up some info on the EP because that is what the band themselves described it as. You should probably take down the other meanings on LUNAR WILDERNESS and AUGMENT because they are wrong.
AlexBarr, calm down. There is a good chance that the story in the EP could be connected to the Sun of Nothing/Swim to the Moon story. One of the characters could be the business man that was introduced in Sun of Nothing. If you look at the lyrics and the story, I wouldn't surprised if it's true. <br /> I don't agree with Aut0didact's interpretation completely but you just completely shut him down. All BTBAM said was a story of two people, they never said who they were.
The first set of lyrics
"A twisted crash... vibrations forming my personal currency. A lifeline... a sweatbox, the linear mind as one. Who would have thought? This distant face... Distant life.. never before seen. Deep sleep in deep sea. Nerves are torn from their ends."
Sounds of a being who is being thrust into another being. Seeing a distant life, never before seen. It probably feels like nerves being torn from their ends.
I think prospect 1 and 2 are the same being.. In the final part of Lunar Wilderness Prospect 2 realizes what Prospect 1 is feeling. The feeling of utter failure, the end of all life.
"Home. The empty space of home. All I've known is gone. All I've loved is lost. Silence."
Hypersleep is a way of being put into another beings consciousness.
Except that the band members themselves have stated it's two different people. It's even on the official website description.