Lost In Xanadu Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 What is your version of the story the album is telling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeddyRulz Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? I think I'll need to rely on the Kevin Anderson novel, although it's not coming out until autumn. The "episodes" the character goes through in each separate song seem unrelated to each other, so you can't draw a very linear line through the story. "Fountain of Lamneth" was somewhat like that, too, but not to this degree. He has a series of adventures, out in the bigger world, away from his hometown. How he transitions from one adventure (song) to the next, I can't tell. What do the wreckers have to do with the carnies have to do with the pedlar have to do with the anarchist have to do with the Watchmaker have to do with the woman from "Halo Effect" have to do with the narrator...? How do all these characters and adventures relate to one another? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost In Xanadu Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 12 2012, 12:32 PM) QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? I think I'll need to rely on the Kevin Anderson novel, although it's not coming out until autumn. The "episodes" the character goes through in each separate song seem unrelated to each other, so you can't draw a very linear line through the story. "Fountain of Lamneth" was somewhat like that, too, but not to this degree. He has a series of adventures, out in the bigger world, away from his hometown. How he transitions from one adventure (song) to the next, I can't tell. What do the wreckers have to do with the carnies have to do with the pedlar have to do with the anarchist have to do with the Watchmaker have to do with the woman from "Halo Effect" have to do with the narrator...? How do all these characters and adventures relate to one another? If you read the notes in the book, it kind of tells how they relate to the main character... it gives quite a good framework, but lots of gaps to fill in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeddyRulz Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:36 PM) QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 12 2012, 12:32 PM) QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? I think I'll need to rely on the Kevin Anderson novel, although it's not coming out until autumn. The "episodes" the character goes through in each separate song seem unrelated to each other, so you can't draw a very linear line through the story. "Fountain of Lamneth" was somewhat like that, too, but not to this degree. He has a series of adventures, out in the bigger world, away from his hometown. How he transitions from one adventure (song) to the next, I can't tell. What do the wreckers have to do with the carnies have to do with the pedlar have to do with the anarchist have to do with the Watchmaker have to do with the woman from "Halo Effect" have to do with the narrator...? How do all these characters and adventures relate to one another? If you read the notes in the book, it kind of tells how they relate to the main character... it gives quite a good framework, but lots of gaps to fill in. Yeah, those little narrative bits in the lyric sheet help, but the whole thing is still confusing. Don't get me wrong, though: I'm okay being "confused" for now, and I think the album is AWESOME!!! But I'll need the novel to sort the story out, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 It's about a man called Fridge who starts out as a humble sheep farmer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmotionDetector Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (treeduck @ Jun 12 2012, 02:33 PM) It's about a man called Fridge who starts out as a humble sheep farmer... Where is he these days?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeduck Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (EmotionDetector @ Jun 12 2012, 01:42 PM) QUOTE (treeduck @ Jun 12 2012, 02:33 PM) It's about a man called Fridge who starts out as a humble sheep farmer... Where is he these days?? I dunno... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Presto-digitation Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 (edited) QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? You live your life for love, to give and get it. Nothing else matters more. End of. Edited June 12, 2012 by Presto-digitation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lost In Xanadu Posted June 12, 2012 Author Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (Presto-digitation @ Jun 12 2012, 01:48 PM) QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? You live your life for love, to give and get it. Nothing else matters more. End of. hippie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Presto-digitation Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 01:51 PM) QUOTE (Presto-digitation @ Jun 12 2012, 01:48 PM) QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 12 2012, 12:25 PM) What is your version of the story the album is telling? You live your life for love, to give and get it. Nothing else matters more. End of. hippie Oh and a big bag o' weed...! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeddyRulz Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 Another listen-and-a-half later, and something occurs to me: The lyrics are focused less on the protagonist's little episodic adventures and more on WHAT HE LEARNS FROM THEM. The narrative may be confusing because there's little narrative there - it's unimportant; the focus is on what the hero LEARNS. Look at the lyric sheet or listen to all the songs again. It's not as if the lyrics tell linear and specific stories, just the bare bones of what happened (and these "bare bones" are often in the italicized part, not in the lyrics), followed by an epistemic "this is what I now know" song. For example - From "The Anarchist" he learns: It's shameful to tell How often I fell In love with illusions again From "The Wreckers" he learns: All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary Of a miracle too good to be true. All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary - Everything in life you thought you knew. All I know is that memory can be too much to carry... From "Wish Them Well" he learns a lot, including: People who judge without a measure of mercy All the victims who will never learn Even the lost ones, you can only give up on Even the ones who make you burn The ones who've done you wrong The ones who pretended to be so strong The grudges you've held for so long It's not worth singing that same sad song Even though you're going through hell Just keep on going... All that you can do is wish them well You get the idea. What nugget of wisdom did the hero acquire from each episodic moment of his life? That's what we hear about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 of the 7 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 The moral of the story, to me, is much the same as the message of Bravado: if love remains when everything is lost, you will pay the price, but you will not count the cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Earthshine Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 12 2012, 02:17 PM) Another listen-and-a-half later, and something occurs to me: The lyrics are focused less on the protagonist's little episodic adventures and more on WHAT HE LEARNS FROM THEM. The narrative may be confusing because there's little narrative there - it's unimportant; the focus is on what the hero LEARNS. Look at the lyric sheet or listen to all the songs again. It's not as if the lyrics tell linear and specific stories, just the bare bones of what happened (and these "bare bones" are often in the italicized part, not in the lyrics), followed by an epistemic "this is what I now know" song. For example - From "The Anarchist" he learns: It's shameful to tell How often I fell In love with illusions again From "The Wreckers" he learns: All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary Of a miracle too good to be true. All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary - Everything in life you thought you knew. All I know is that memory can be too much to carry... From "Wish Them Well" he learns a lot, including: People who judge without a measure of mercy All the victims who will never learn Even the lost ones, you can only give up on Even the ones who make you burn The ones who've done you wrong The ones who pretended to be so strong The grudges you've held for so long It's not worth singing that same sad song Even though you're going through hell Just keep on going... All that you can do is wish them well You get the idea. What nugget of wisdom did the hero acquire from each episodic moment of his life? That's what we hear about. Sounds very close. I am still working on it. This is fun! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndroidOnTheRun Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 12 2012, 03:17 PM)The lyrics are focused less on the protagonist's little episodic adventures and more on WHAT HE LEARNS FROM THEM. The narrative may be confusing because there's little narrative there - it's unimportant; the focus is on what the hero LEARNS. Look at the lyric sheet or listen to all the songs again. It's not as if the lyrics tell linear and specific stories, just the bare bones of what happened (and these "bare bones" are often in the italicized part, not in the lyrics), followed by an epistemic "this is what I now know" song. Well said. This is exactly what I've been appreciating about Neil's lyrics on CA; from a pure songwriting standpoint, he's done some of his best work here. [Disclaimer: Yay, it's my first post, just realized I kind of wrote a novel, oops... well, let's look to the album 2112 and say that it never hurts to lead off with an epic....] Not only do the lyrics largely concern themselves with learning through experience and reflection, the songs also dance around a common thread that contributes to the overall lesson. Almost every piece deals in some way with the difficulty of separating dreams from self-delusions (to paraphrase "War Paint" ). In many of the lyrics, there is an element presented as a truth but revealed to be false: the "all is for the best" worldview, the bitter me-vs.-them mentality of the Anarchist, the crush put on a pedestal, the legend of Cibola, the cruel trap posing as a light in the storm. Because of this, the songs have a thematic unity not seen, I think, since HYF. (Not to say that the albums in between didn't have thematic concepts -- RTB and VT have common threads in their lyrics -- but I feel HYF is most effective in the execution of the big picture.) Through the arc of the album, we eventually find that, despite the foolishness of believing in miracles to good to be true, we still have to believe in something -- and ultimately, that something is the knowledge that life goes on, a knowledge we call hope. To me, THAT's the story -- the "plot" itself is not the entire concept; the spiritual journey is. And I love how that journey, like Candide, begins and ends in the same place: the young man who "can't stop thinking big in a world where [he] feels so small" recalls that energy in the penultimate chapter as he encourages others to ignore the naysayers, "thank your stars you're not that way, turn around, and walk away." Just before that is what may be my favorite moment of the album -- the turn in "BU2B2." Now, I'm a bit of a theatre nerd, so I LOVE that Neil uses a reprise, especially one where the hook gets twisted around to a new meaning. The shade of meaning that's changed from "I was brought up to believe X" to simply "I was brought up to believe [period]" (the transitive vs. intransitive) perfectly expresses the dreams vs. self-delusions dilemma and really makes the whole album for me. Fodder enough for me to take on Peart-lyric-haters for decades. First post concluded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CygnusX-1Bk2 Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 The line "surrounds me like a cage" make me cringe. Any lyric that says one thing is like another, which is my biggest issue with HYF. So many "like" things on that album. Tell me what something is, not what it's like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndroidOnTheRun Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 QUOTE (CygnusX-1Bk2 @ Jun 15 2012, 03:11 AM)The line "surrounds me like a cage" make me cringe. Any lyric that says one thing is like another, which is my biggest issue with HYF. So many "like" things on that album. Tell me what something is, not what it's like. Just a personal preference for metaphors over similes, or is there a more analytical reason behind that? Not picking a fight, just curious, as that's a criticism haven't encountered before (of lyrics in general, not just Rush). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Running Rebel Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Running Rebel Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 QUOTE (GeddyRulz @ Jun 12 2012, 02:17 PM) Another listen-and-a-half later, and something occurs to me: The lyrics are focused less on the protagonist's little episodic adventures and more on WHAT HE LEARNS FROM THEM. The narrative may be confusing because there's little narrative there - it's unimportant; the focus is on what the hero LEARNS. Look at the lyric sheet or listen to all the songs again. It's not as if the lyrics tell linear and specific stories, just the bare bones of what happened (and these "bare bones" are often in the italicized part, not in the lyrics), followed by an epistemic "this is what I now know" song. For example - From "The Anarchist" he learns: It's shameful to tell How often I fell In love with illusions again From "The Wreckers" he learns: All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary Of a miracle too good to be true. All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary - Everything in life you thought you knew. All I know is that memory can be too much to carry... From "Wish Them Well" he learns a lot, including: People who judge without a measure of mercy All the victims who will never learn Even the lost ones, you can only give up on Even the ones who make you burn The ones who've done you wrong The ones who pretended to be so strong The grudges you've held for so long It's not worth singing that same sad song Even though you're going through hell Just keep on going... All that you can do is wish them well You get the idea. What nugget of wisdom did the hero acquire from each episodic moment of his life? That's what we hear about. Good points as always. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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