Fanmix: Kingdom of Welcome Addiction ~ Dom/Mal
I've been addicted this IAMX album for inspiration in writing Arthur/Eames for the last year now. If you recognize a lot of the lines ... um, it's because I suck at titling things.
I've applied how this album can be interpreted for Dom and Mal's relationship, prior to and after her death.
01. The Nature of Inviting
I surrender to the power
Next we're born again
And with fixation on every sign
I cannot explain
I worship intoxication
I took all the pain
It's an appetite that you find that you throw away
Survive the golden dreams you try to escape from
but you surrender to the power
to the only way
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
But that's the nature of inviting
To your recklessness and pleasure
I purely commit
Because everything that you are
Is everything there is
It's a vice of gold and dreams
You try to escape from
But you surrender to the power
To the only way
I love you, I hate you
After Mal’s death: Shade
Oh Cobb, Cobb is so wrapped up in Mal. She is everything to him. She is everything he loves, and everything he hates all in one beautiful, haunting package. She reminds him of his mistake, of how he gave up his life for another only to have it taken away after all. Mal was terribly reckless to follow him into an experiment without thinking of the consequences. She chose to forget herself, forget her reality and her children. Though Cobb knew that it wasn’t real, he let himself be lost into her, into limbo. He gave in as well. He let limbo wash over him and he indulged in of a lifetime with her. Cobb in gave into the vice of unadulterated creation. And when he came back, forced her to come back with him, he created a chasm that he will never ever fill. She will always be something he can’t escape and her memory is tarnished with the years they stole together.
02. Kingdom of Welcome Addiction
Do you remember your coming down
Forced to take sides?
Your taunted charm and your broken smile
Touched me unexpectedly
So long
So long you've waited in line
Desire is a gift in life
So long
So long you've left and arrived
It's time for you to stay a while
If you chose life
You know what the fear is like if...
You welcome addiction
This is your kingdom
Your fight for power
For memories, answers and signs
Will bring you through the dark to light
Clear and redefined
Too long
Too long I waste for these
Emotionally sucking life
Too long
Too long, you waste and right
It's time for you to recognise
Before Mal’s death: Limbo
This song I think tells the story of limbo. A memory of how, at first, it was the desire to stay, to try something new, to experience and experiment the awe inducing power of the mind. To be with each other, to do the things you aren’t able to because of your life above. If you chose life / You know what the fear is like if... / You welcome addiction / This is your kingdom / This is Mal. She locked something away, deep inside. She didn’t want to live in reality. She could leave her children and her life to escape from something. She was terrified of real life. And giving her limbo was giving her a drug, the way to escape. Your fight for power / For memories, answers and signs / Will bring you through the dark to light / This is the moment that Cobb knew he had to leave limbo. He had to take Mal with him, to figure out how to convince her to come to reality. He knew, that above, he had his children and he had a life. Limbo was never supposed to be his life. After a lifetime with Mal in the dream, he wanted to live a lifetime in reality. But Mal wouldn’t go willingly and he had to convince her, somehow, that they needed to wake up, to be back in the light of reality, to escape.
03. Tear Garden
I saw bright open commonsense
I do evil things and evil things return
And I'm praying on, I'm praying for me
You can't hide, I remove from you
Every tiny strength in everything you do
I kick you down
I'll break you with a tender touch
And then the tears cried in the tear garden
Will be for life
And then the tears cried in the tear garden
Will be for life
In the west they have made a plague
We have built the ship, sailed it to our veins
God forbid anything should break that chain
At our road, we connected through
The biology of universal cruelty
Send me home, return me to a lonely womb
Before Mal’s death: Denial
This is the moment of realization for Cobb, when he knows that Mal hasn’t returned, not really. This is when he knows he has broken her, ruined her. He has infected her mind. But he fights it with denial, blaming her downfall on the technology, on the PASIV and its addiction. The power of dreaming was too strong for them both and they were helpless to it. It’s not his fault, though he knows that it is. So he punishes her and he punishes himself by looking the other way. At first he wraps himself in denial, thinking that she will miraculously recover.
04. My Secret Friend
My secret friend
Oh (I'll) take me (you) to the river
My secret friend
So we can swim forever
You have loved
You were not alone
You have braved the weather
When the storm cut you to the bone
There was always shelter
My secret friend
I'll take you to the river
My secret friend
So we can swim forever
In your skin
To die a little death
This time there's no code word
When everyday frays in hollow ends
Dream sweet love submissive
Break my deepest promise
Break my deepest promise
Break my deepest
Before Mal’s death: Lost
Mal is lost. She has a reality that she knows deep down is the correct one. All she wants is to return there, to be with Dom, to build a life with him. But as he tries to convince her that they are in reality, she withdraws. She can’t do anything else, he doesn’t believe her, but she knows. And so she wishes for the other Cobb, the secret one who will create with her. She thinks about the beach, the water, and the river that runs through their home. She wants to give in to it, into the tide, the undulation of it rhythmic and soothing. She wants to go to where it is safe, where she is with the one she loves and they can live together forever. She dreams of it, she longs for it. She plans for it.
05. An I for an I
You owe it to the willing souls
To the white light
Double bluff and figure
An eye for an eye
We go into the TV
To the motherland smile
Apocalypse and rapture psyche in
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
An eye for an eye
We owe it to disaster
To the black fire
The anger and enclosure of desire
An eye for an eye
We owe it to the sex toys
To the icons of our time
Humility and torture in decline
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
Eye for an eye
Eye for an eye
We owe it to the TV
To disaster
To the motherland smile
To the willing souls
To the willing souls
To the willing souls!
Before Mal’s death: Reality
Mal immediately knows that something is wrong when she wakes. This is not her reality. This life of television, and daily life, taking care of her kids in a world so polluted. This isn’t where she belongs. She belongs in another place, where she can raise her kids in world of her creating, someplace beautiful, someplace safe. Cobb is supposed to come with her. He needs to wake up. He’s just a ghost of himself; he could be so much more. They could create so much more. She doesn’t understand why he doesn’t want to wake up, why he’s unwilling to join her. So she plans, a perfect way to show Cobb his error. She’ll take him with her, to their real life.
06. I Am Terrified
You look good in leather in bars
Breaking things, breaking hearts
You look good in pleasure, in hotels
Loneliness is the key to break that spell
I am terrified, I think too much
I get emotional when I drink too much
I buy every cry, 'cause I don't trust
I am terrified, I think too much
In your blood, the fetish
The prize of a million teasing moments blind
Will release you from the circus, the railway
But the gravity between us will keep us safe
After Mal’s death: Haunting
He can’t get away from her. She’s dead. She’s dead, she’s dead, and she’s dead. But she’s there. She’s there in the leather bar they take the repressed, gay, married mark to. She’s sitting in the corner, smoking cigarettes like she’s twenty-five again, like he’s spotted her down the bar and can send a drink her way. And she’s so beautiful. But then she stabs Arthur between his ribs and her hands are covered in blood and she’s this hard, glinting diamond tipped saw, something too sharp to touch, tearing through his dreams. Cobb doesn’t want to remember her like this, this madness in her. He doesn’t want to dream. At first he tried to drink her away, stone cold drunk every night so he couldn’t go under. But then she’s just a blur, flashes of her smile, of her eyes in the faces of others. He can’t get away from her, not waking, not sleeping, so he gives in to her. He can’t help it; he needs to see her, to be with her, to promise her he’ll be with her that they’ll grow old together.
07. Think of England
In the grip of a winter came love and greed
Insane with faith, I took the driving front seat
In the low-light comfort of Berlin streets
The calm from emptiness duetted with my body heat
I was alone at the front line
The message I was told was to try and find
The joy of a lifetime
I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire
I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire
In the twilight hours of nervous rest
I bought the beast before believing the threats
In a foreign field, I cut all regrets
But the poisoned stories just repeat themselves in fucked up mess
I was alone for the first time
The message I was told was to try and find
The joy of a lifetime
Before Mal’s death: Walking Ghost
Cobb tries to get Mal help eventually. It’s too late, but he doesn’t know that yet. He talks with colleagues, anyone he knows who’s dealt with illness in dream share before. But what they were doing was all but unheard of. Very few people had gone so far down before, at least that’s the indication he got when he described Limbo to a few of his veteran friends. Cobb frantically fights for any ground to bring her back, to convince her that this is reality. He takes her on a vacation to England but the trip is hollow and joyless. It hurts to see her float through the streets, not paying attention at all, retreating into her own mind. He tries to take her to talk to therapists (which she refuses). He feels like he’s alone, fighting against the world. And nobody can help him. It’s the same old story over and over. She should be fine soon. She’ll get better. But Cobb knows deep down that she won’t. And the thought that no one knows what he’s dealing with, that know one can help, makes him feel so alone.
08. The Stupid The Proud
God is dead
We get to sleep tonight
Walk with me into the truth
Out of your lies
Man equals woman
I'm just the messenger
Don't shoot me down
The army, so faithful
The killers of reason
The grief for the crown
The stupid, the proud
They blow our houses down!
The stupid, the proud
They blow our houses down!
Exalt yourself
Do it to stay alive
Serve your duty
You must demand, they must abide
Queer is the universe
Habit the liberty, destructive in time
Hunt down your future
And everything you know is not enough to survive!
Before Mal’s death: Anger
Mal isn’t some passive passenger to her delusion. She fights. She becomes infuriated by Cobb, screams at him to wake up. Reasoning doesn’t work with him and sometimes she just can’t hold it in. He’s so convinced this is the real world. He’s so adamant that she is wrong. But she’s just trying to deliver the truth and he looks at her like she is crazy! She didn’t make this world the way it is, he did. This is his dream. She’s just trying to tell him, but he’s lost, that he doesn’t have to live in this world. These are not his children. This is not his life. He has no responsibilities here. He’s so proud. He can’t give up this life. This isn’t even their life; they have a better one back in reality. Mal doesn’t understand why Cobb is so attached to this dream. It’s destroying them. She hates him more every day. But she knows that she has to wake up. She has to die to survive. He forced her here, into this dream, but she’ll get him back into her world, no matter the cost.
09. You Can Be Happy
You walked into the world
As a super human boy and girl
In the blinking of your eyes
I was born and sold
By your manifesto
It's cruel world
For small things
But with the lies and luxuries
And in in-between
You can be happy
You put me in a cage
In the daily maze of flesh and rage (ooh)
That I will follow every truth
I won't let you go
I want every tomorrow
And now I am afraid
You will blossom soon
And grow and change
There is so much I can't take
But I will understand
I will open my hand
You can be happy
You can be happy (it's cruel world for small things...)
You can be happy (... but with the lies an luxuries...)
You can be happy (... and in in-between...)
You can be happy (... you can be happy...)
You can be happy
There's an open window
And I can go through
To the life of others
There's nothing I can't do
Before Mal’s death: Falling in Love
Their love is destined to be bittersweet, a tragedy of betrayal, of lost dreams. But they don’t know that yet. Cobb has just realized that he is in love. But he’s worried that he’ll lose her to someone else, that she’ll figure out that she is too good for him. He wants to assure her that he will do everything he can to make her happy. They can build a life together; they can be together and love each other. He just hopes that she can see that, that she’ll believe him. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do right now to give her everything that she wants, if she’ll just love him. This world can be a cruel and trying place, with its horrors and its trivialities. If they can just carve out a place for themselves, for their life together, than they will have everything they need.
10. The Great Shipwreck of Life
We can make you understand
We can make you understand
Play with me
You can make the love and I'll make the money
Stay with me
Shut out the world, live underneath the city
Release cold gender bombs
On chromonial closets, middle England
Stay with me
I'll be Peter Pan and you just be pretty
To the brave and the petrified
We all fall down
To the slaves and the civilised
We all fall down
To the lovers we left behind
The bad days, the good nights
In the great shipwreck of life
We all fall down
Born, we are, between the hard black rock
And the cold of the immortal
Torn from cause from the flames of the brave
And the bosom we can't return to
We light up the bars of the world
With the decadent distance of innocence, oh!
Free, but sharp
We could be the centre-line guiding through the dark, oh!
Manifesto, black fire
We can make you understand
Of liberty and bright light
We could make you understand
We could make you understand
We could make you understand!
We can make you understand...
After Mal’s death: The Dream
Cobb wants to believe her. He wants to stay with Mal, to join her in the world they built together. He doesn’t know what is reality sometimes, her totem his only guide when the memories of her become too much. She taunts him. She’s convinced that he will realize his error, that he’ll join her. She thinks she can make him understand that he is dreaming. But he knows he isn’t. Or does he? At night he stares at the ceiling and wonders if the crack in the ceiling is more real than the sand castles he and Mal would make on the beach. He remembers holding her hand, walking the streets they created, taking in the world. The made something beautiful. Is that not real? He remembers it. It was real to him. The dream, Limbo, is so sharp in his mind, still attached to his sense memory. Sometimes he thinks it would be so easy to give in, to escape this tragedy that is his life now, barred from his children, on the run. This is no life. His life is darkness. His life is sad phone calls peppered with harsh truths. No, daddy can’t come home. No mommy isn’t going to come home … ever.Limbo seems so bright, so pure. And he understands why Mal could choose it over real life. He does. But he can’t abandon his children. He won’t. His life is bleak and he misses Mal so much, but he has to go on. He just has to make her understand that. (He has to make himself understand that.)
11. Running
You sing for me, my friend
Brave and confident
And there is comfort between your breaths
And I use sense to help
But when the days beneath me
Scream into my present
I must always run the race on my own
Your warmth is in my bed
Your voice above the stairs
And then the touching that comes regret
Becomes my mercy chair
Even when the sun is burning
Saving graces
I must always run the race on my own
Oh the sinking and descent
Of every saving word
And the destruction of all convention
And all corrupted thought
Dig their nails into my optimistic shell
I must always run the race on my own
After Mal’s death: Alone
The words spill out of him like an overturned cup. He’s speaking them before he knows they are the truth, but they are the truth. Look at you. You’re just a shade. You’re just a shade of my real wife. He could believe her offered truths, he could lose himself in Limbo again, but she’s not real. She’s not even close. She’s an imitation of the love they had, the passion. Her words are comforting little lies and he’s been guilty of indulging in them. If he lets go of her here, than he will only have his memories of her to live with. He thinks about what life would be like, all the memories filling their house. He can see her in their bed, sleepy eyed, lit by the bright morning sun. Cobb doesn’t want to be alone, to only have his memory. It would be so easy to keep here, even if it is only part of her, in dreams. But He realizes that he has to let her go. He has to move on.
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comments.
I've applied how this album can be interpreted for Dom and Mal's relationship, prior to and after her death.
01. The Nature of Inviting
I surrender to the power
Next we're born again
And with fixation on every sign
I cannot explain
I worship intoxication
I took all the pain
It's an appetite that you find that you throw away
Survive the golden dreams you try to escape from
but you surrender to the power
to the only way
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
I love you, I hate you
But that's the nature of inviting
To your recklessness and pleasure
I purely commit
Because everything that you are
Is everything there is
It's a vice of gold and dreams
You try to escape from
But you surrender to the power
To the only way
I love you, I hate you
After Mal’s death: Shade
Oh Cobb, Cobb is so wrapped up in Mal. She is everything to him. She is everything he loves, and everything he hates all in one beautiful, haunting package. She reminds him of his mistake, of how he gave up his life for another only to have it taken away after all. Mal was terribly reckless to follow him into an experiment without thinking of the consequences. She chose to forget herself, forget her reality and her children. Though Cobb knew that it wasn’t real, he let himself be lost into her, into limbo. He gave in as well. He let limbo wash over him and he indulged in of a lifetime with her. Cobb in gave into the vice of unadulterated creation. And when he came back, forced her to come back with him, he created a chasm that he will never ever fill. She will always be something he can’t escape and her memory is tarnished with the years they stole together.
02. Kingdom of Welcome Addiction
Do you remember your coming down
Forced to take sides?
Your taunted charm and your broken smile
Touched me unexpectedly
So long
So long you've waited in line
Desire is a gift in life
So long
So long you've left and arrived
It's time for you to stay a while
If you chose life
You know what the fear is like if...
You welcome addiction
This is your kingdom
Your fight for power
For memories, answers and signs
Will bring you through the dark to light
Clear and redefined
Too long
Too long I waste for these
Emotionally sucking life
Too long
Too long, you waste and right
It's time for you to recognise
Before Mal’s death: Limbo
This song I think tells the story of limbo. A memory of how, at first, it was the desire to stay, to try something new, to experience and experiment the awe inducing power of the mind. To be with each other, to do the things you aren’t able to because of your life above. If you chose life / You know what the fear is like if... / You welcome addiction / This is your kingdom / This is Mal. She locked something away, deep inside. She didn’t want to live in reality. She could leave her children and her life to escape from something. She was terrified of real life. And giving her limbo was giving her a drug, the way to escape. Your fight for power / For memories, answers and signs / Will bring you through the dark to light / This is the moment that Cobb knew he had to leave limbo. He had to take Mal with him, to figure out how to convince her to come to reality. He knew, that above, he had his children and he had a life. Limbo was never supposed to be his life. After a lifetime with Mal in the dream, he wanted to live a lifetime in reality. But Mal wouldn’t go willingly and he had to convince her, somehow, that they needed to wake up, to be back in the light of reality, to escape.
03. Tear Garden
I saw bright open commonsense
I do evil things and evil things return
And I'm praying on, I'm praying for me
You can't hide, I remove from you
Every tiny strength in everything you do
I kick you down
I'll break you with a tender touch
And then the tears cried in the tear garden
Will be for life
And then the tears cried in the tear garden
Will be for life
In the west they have made a plague
We have built the ship, sailed it to our veins
God forbid anything should break that chain
At our road, we connected through
The biology of universal cruelty
Send me home, return me to a lonely womb
Before Mal’s death: Denial
This is the moment of realization for Cobb, when he knows that Mal hasn’t returned, not really. This is when he knows he has broken her, ruined her. He has infected her mind. But he fights it with denial, blaming her downfall on the technology, on the PASIV and its addiction. The power of dreaming was too strong for them both and they were helpless to it. It’s not his fault, though he knows that it is. So he punishes her and he punishes himself by looking the other way. At first he wraps himself in denial, thinking that she will miraculously recover.
04. My Secret Friend
My secret friend
Oh (I'll) take me (you) to the river
My secret friend
So we can swim forever
You have loved
You were not alone
You have braved the weather
When the storm cut you to the bone
There was always shelter
My secret friend
I'll take you to the river
My secret friend
So we can swim forever
In your skin
To die a little death
This time there's no code word
When everyday frays in hollow ends
Dream sweet love submissive
Break my deepest promise
Break my deepest promise
Break my deepest
Before Mal’s death: Lost
Mal is lost. She has a reality that she knows deep down is the correct one. All she wants is to return there, to be with Dom, to build a life with him. But as he tries to convince her that they are in reality, she withdraws. She can’t do anything else, he doesn’t believe her, but she knows. And so she wishes for the other Cobb, the secret one who will create with her. She thinks about the beach, the water, and the river that runs through their home. She wants to give in to it, into the tide, the undulation of it rhythmic and soothing. She wants to go to where it is safe, where she is with the one she loves and they can live together forever. She dreams of it, she longs for it. She plans for it.
05. An I for an I
You owe it to the willing souls
To the white light
Double bluff and figure
An eye for an eye
We go into the TV
To the motherland smile
Apocalypse and rapture psyche in
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
An eye for an eye
We owe it to disaster
To the black fire
The anger and enclosure of desire
An eye for an eye
We owe it to the sex toys
To the icons of our time
Humility and torture in decline
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
An eye for an eye
If you're not with us, you're a ghost
Eye for an eye
Eye for an eye
We owe it to the TV
To disaster
To the motherland smile
To the willing souls
To the willing souls
To the willing souls!
Before Mal’s death: Reality
Mal immediately knows that something is wrong when she wakes. This is not her reality. This life of television, and daily life, taking care of her kids in a world so polluted. This isn’t where she belongs. She belongs in another place, where she can raise her kids in world of her creating, someplace beautiful, someplace safe. Cobb is supposed to come with her. He needs to wake up. He’s just a ghost of himself; he could be so much more. They could create so much more. She doesn’t understand why he doesn’t want to wake up, why he’s unwilling to join her. So she plans, a perfect way to show Cobb his error. She’ll take him with her, to their real life.
06. I Am Terrified
You look good in leather in bars
Breaking things, breaking hearts
You look good in pleasure, in hotels
Loneliness is the key to break that spell
I am terrified, I think too much
I get emotional when I drink too much
I buy every cry, 'cause I don't trust
I am terrified, I think too much
In your blood, the fetish
The prize of a million teasing moments blind
Will release you from the circus, the railway
But the gravity between us will keep us safe
After Mal’s death: Haunting
He can’t get away from her. She’s dead. She’s dead, she’s dead, and she’s dead. But she’s there. She’s there in the leather bar they take the repressed, gay, married mark to. She’s sitting in the corner, smoking cigarettes like she’s twenty-five again, like he’s spotted her down the bar and can send a drink her way. And she’s so beautiful. But then she stabs Arthur between his ribs and her hands are covered in blood and she’s this hard, glinting diamond tipped saw, something too sharp to touch, tearing through his dreams. Cobb doesn’t want to remember her like this, this madness in her. He doesn’t want to dream. At first he tried to drink her away, stone cold drunk every night so he couldn’t go under. But then she’s just a blur, flashes of her smile, of her eyes in the faces of others. He can’t get away from her, not waking, not sleeping, so he gives in to her. He can’t help it; he needs to see her, to be with her, to promise her he’ll be with her that they’ll grow old together.
07. Think of England
In the grip of a winter came love and greed
Insane with faith, I took the driving front seat
In the low-light comfort of Berlin streets
The calm from emptiness duetted with my body heat
I was alone at the front line
The message I was told was to try and find
The joy of a lifetime
I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire
I just can't think of England
I can't see the picture
I'm still running from the fire, the fire, the fire
In the twilight hours of nervous rest
I bought the beast before believing the threats
In a foreign field, I cut all regrets
But the poisoned stories just repeat themselves in fucked up mess
I was alone for the first time
The message I was told was to try and find
The joy of a lifetime
Before Mal’s death: Walking Ghost
Cobb tries to get Mal help eventually. It’s too late, but he doesn’t know that yet. He talks with colleagues, anyone he knows who’s dealt with illness in dream share before. But what they were doing was all but unheard of. Very few people had gone so far down before, at least that’s the indication he got when he described Limbo to a few of his veteran friends. Cobb frantically fights for any ground to bring her back, to convince her that this is reality. He takes her on a vacation to England but the trip is hollow and joyless. It hurts to see her float through the streets, not paying attention at all, retreating into her own mind. He tries to take her to talk to therapists (which she refuses). He feels like he’s alone, fighting against the world. And nobody can help him. It’s the same old story over and over. She should be fine soon. She’ll get better. But Cobb knows deep down that she won’t. And the thought that no one knows what he’s dealing with, that know one can help, makes him feel so alone.
08. The Stupid The Proud
God is dead
We get to sleep tonight
Walk with me into the truth
Out of your lies
Man equals woman
I'm just the messenger
Don't shoot me down
The army, so faithful
The killers of reason
The grief for the crown
The stupid, the proud
They blow our houses down!
The stupid, the proud
They blow our houses down!
Exalt yourself
Do it to stay alive
Serve your duty
You must demand, they must abide
Queer is the universe
Habit the liberty, destructive in time
Hunt down your future
And everything you know is not enough to survive!
Before Mal’s death: Anger
Mal isn’t some passive passenger to her delusion. She fights. She becomes infuriated by Cobb, screams at him to wake up. Reasoning doesn’t work with him and sometimes she just can’t hold it in. He’s so convinced this is the real world. He’s so adamant that she is wrong. But she’s just trying to deliver the truth and he looks at her like she is crazy! She didn’t make this world the way it is, he did. This is his dream. She’s just trying to tell him, but he’s lost, that he doesn’t have to live in this world. These are not his children. This is not his life. He has no responsibilities here. He’s so proud. He can’t give up this life. This isn’t even their life; they have a better one back in reality. Mal doesn’t understand why Cobb is so attached to this dream. It’s destroying them. She hates him more every day. But she knows that she has to wake up. She has to die to survive. He forced her here, into this dream, but she’ll get him back into her world, no matter the cost.
09. You Can Be Happy
You walked into the world
As a super human boy and girl
In the blinking of your eyes
I was born and sold
By your manifesto
It's cruel world
For small things
But with the lies and luxuries
And in in-between
You can be happy
You put me in a cage
In the daily maze of flesh and rage (ooh)
That I will follow every truth
I won't let you go
I want every tomorrow
And now I am afraid
You will blossom soon
And grow and change
There is so much I can't take
But I will understand
I will open my hand
You can be happy
You can be happy (it's cruel world for small things...)
You can be happy (... but with the lies an luxuries...)
You can be happy (... and in in-between...)
You can be happy (... you can be happy...)
You can be happy
There's an open window
And I can go through
To the life of others
There's nothing I can't do
Before Mal’s death: Falling in Love
Their love is destined to be bittersweet, a tragedy of betrayal, of lost dreams. But they don’t know that yet. Cobb has just realized that he is in love. But he’s worried that he’ll lose her to someone else, that she’ll figure out that she is too good for him. He wants to assure her that he will do everything he can to make her happy. They can build a life together; they can be together and love each other. He just hopes that she can see that, that she’ll believe him. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do right now to give her everything that she wants, if she’ll just love him. This world can be a cruel and trying place, with its horrors and its trivialities. If they can just carve out a place for themselves, for their life together, than they will have everything they need.
10. The Great Shipwreck of Life
We can make you understand
We can make you understand
Play with me
You can make the love and I'll make the money
Stay with me
Shut out the world, live underneath the city
Release cold gender bombs
On chromonial closets, middle England
Stay with me
I'll be Peter Pan and you just be pretty
To the brave and the petrified
We all fall down
To the slaves and the civilised
We all fall down
To the lovers we left behind
The bad days, the good nights
In the great shipwreck of life
We all fall down
Born, we are, between the hard black rock
And the cold of the immortal
Torn from cause from the flames of the brave
And the bosom we can't return to
We light up the bars of the world
With the decadent distance of innocence, oh!
Free, but sharp
We could be the centre-line guiding through the dark, oh!
Manifesto, black fire
We can make you understand
Of liberty and bright light
We could make you understand
We could make you understand
We could make you understand!
We can make you understand...
After Mal’s death: The Dream
Cobb wants to believe her. He wants to stay with Mal, to join her in the world they built together. He doesn’t know what is reality sometimes, her totem his only guide when the memories of her become too much. She taunts him. She’s convinced that he will realize his error, that he’ll join her. She thinks she can make him understand that he is dreaming. But he knows he isn’t. Or does he? At night he stares at the ceiling and wonders if the crack in the ceiling is more real than the sand castles he and Mal would make on the beach. He remembers holding her hand, walking the streets they created, taking in the world. The made something beautiful. Is that not real? He remembers it. It was real to him. The dream, Limbo, is so sharp in his mind, still attached to his sense memory. Sometimes he thinks it would be so easy to give in, to escape this tragedy that is his life now, barred from his children, on the run. This is no life. His life is darkness. His life is sad phone calls peppered with harsh truths. No, daddy can’t come home. No mommy isn’t going to come home … ever.Limbo seems so bright, so pure. And he understands why Mal could choose it over real life. He does. But he can’t abandon his children. He won’t. His life is bleak and he misses Mal so much, but he has to go on. He just has to make her understand that. (He has to make himself understand that.)
11. Running
You sing for me, my friend
Brave and confident
And there is comfort between your breaths
And I use sense to help
But when the days beneath me
Scream into my present
I must always run the race on my own
Your warmth is in my bed
Your voice above the stairs
And then the touching that comes regret
Becomes my mercy chair
Even when the sun is burning
Saving graces
I must always run the race on my own
Oh the sinking and descent
Of every saving word
And the destruction of all convention
And all corrupted thought
Dig their nails into my optimistic shell
I must always run the race on my own
After Mal’s death: Alone
The words spill out of him like an overturned cup. He’s speaking them before he knows they are the truth, but they are the truth. Look at you. You’re just a shade. You’re just a shade of my real wife. He could believe her offered truths, he could lose himself in Limbo again, but she’s not real. She’s not even close. She’s an imitation of the love they had, the passion. Her words are comforting little lies and he’s been guilty of indulging in them. If he lets go of her here, than he will only have his memories of her to live with. He thinks about what life would be like, all the memories filling their house. He can see her in their bed, sleepy eyed, lit by the bright morning sun. Cobb doesn’t want to be alone, to only have his memory. It would be so easy to keep here, even if it is only part of her, in dreams. But He realizes that he has to let her go. He has to move on.
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