Escalator Shrine

The more I listen to Riverside lyrics the more I fucking love them. It really is rare to find reflexive lyrics nowadays that aren't psychobabble.

In tune with the rest of the album's lyrics, the whole song speaks about massive consummerism, the cult of buying, the decay of identity brought by the spread of digital communication, and the isolation of the individual caused by all of this.

The "escalator shrine" is of course talking about massive amounts of people going to pray to the god of "BUY". Inevitably in these crowds identities are lost and the feeling is "that no one here is real". (This tied with the digital era) Not only that, but there is no stillness or tranquility at all.

"We are moving standees in the shrine of choices Incarcerated between floors of hope and disappointment"

The choices were are given are, of course, fake, or in any case, all the same. It's almost tragicomic: moving by standing still.

"Melting into another lonely crowd"

This part is just spot on: even if we are in a crowd of many, because of the way we communicate, we are isolated. Fucking brilliant.

"Used to have our love And now - Disposable needs Used to have our souls And now - Refined new skins Take - Use - Throw away - Forget"

Its just plain depressing. It keeps on going about how with this "discardable" mentality nothing has any lasting value. Not even love.

The ending is pretty grim too. We can't stop, so we gotta keep on moving on.

@Snoardur This is quite good interpretation. I would add the few elements and replace a few.

First of all keep in mind the one brilliant metaphore: people moving by escalator stairs.

Lets start with the idea that originally, before story begins, people are outside the "shrine".

(The first part of the song.) People then want to go to the "escalator shrine" (you could say: the shrine of escalators) to refine themselves ("be reborn"). From the context we can conclude, that the "shrine" could be the Internet itself ("Google boys and Wiki girls"). And we can be anyone in the Internet - we just need to "Shed our skins".

When we enter the shrine and then step into escalator stairs we stand, yet move forward. No action or effort required. Just relinquish the free will, because we are already bound to experience either of two outcomes: hope and disappointment. But do not worry, if you do not like the floor just take another scalator to take you to the other floor. After all it is "shrine of choices". We just need to pick proper escalator and let it carry us.

We enter the kind of store, where we can buy cheap illusion rather than expensive reality. In case of the Internet this might be true. Do not you see how everyone is good and the overwhelming happiness encouraging you to stay in this world? All it takes is to take a deep dive into the pleasant, fake reality where all of our individual dreams related to the other people manifest themselves. So, we are finally admired, we got some likes, we are beautiful. We can easily cover our drawbacks, as noone will ever notice we have some. We are perfect, which is exactly what we wanted before entering the "shrine". We have "refined new skins".

(The second part of the song.) Now, we exit the shrine. We replaced the feeling of love with disposable needs. We sold our souls to have a new, shiny skins. We "evolved" without the need to feel attached to anything or anyone. We just have our needs and after they are fullfilled we can get rid of them and forget. And pick a new one. The "shrine" taught us that it is everyone's responsibility to deliver everything we demand from them.

(The third part of the song.) A long time has passed. It is very hard for us to move on. It is because we accumulated a big amount of "sins" and "all those wasted years". It is a burden we have to carry upon the "new days". Living in the world of illusions left us utterly vulnerable for deception. The sun is setting. Its light, which we now crave, shines through us casting shadows. We might have just realised that the "shrine's" lessons have led us to the dark path. The sun is our last hope. But the ground already burns. This "ground" is everything we have been in contact with throughout our life - any place, people, our home, our land, and finally - our favourite Internet.

We "try to reach the journey's end" before the imminent doom ("the sun will die"). This doom is the turning point from which we cannot go back. We "sense we're almost there". But what is the journey's goal? It seems we forgot it, so the journey cannot even end. It is too late anyway. The doom approaches leaving us to struggle in the dark. We desperately and painfully want to go back after we realise that. Its impossible.

We can't stop. We can't stop because after we left the "shrine" we still have its escalator's momentum. Outside the "shrine" we must still imitate the escalator's ride. And so we move, slowly.

The outro of the song is grim. We are already done. All we can do now is sit and sing the children song while watching our final extinction.

Thank you for reading.