Total Eclipse of the Heart
Track 18 of Post is labelled Total Eclipse of the Heart. It is definitely not a Bonnie Tyler song (it is worth noting that every song on Post is relabelled as another song from elsewhere.)
I have begun a preliminary analysis of this song. Notes follow:
Lyrics:
Initial points worth noting:
For most of the song there is a male background singer (indicated by parenthesis) who I initially had ignored. However, where the parts are divided into "Male Singer:" and "Female Singer:," the two have a discourse. I didn't notice this at first, but it may be important. I have hypothesized that the male singer may be Water. In the Post album, he seems to fall into the background in all things, but here he seems to come to the foreground, actually speaking, rather than being a mere recipient of a message.
how can you see into my eyes like open doors
leading you down into my core
where I’ve become so numb without a soul my spirit sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home
Pending a better way to phrase my thoughts...
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
We asked Fire the question "What have you become?" Our response was effectively nothing. Mayhaps had we asked the same thing of any of the other miscreant women, we would have gotten the same answer. I wonder, in retrospect, what we would have gotten if we had asked Water this question.
Regardless, the interplay of the male voice in here is eerie. If one takes the male to be Water in any context, then he is equally lost, and he is calling to them to wake him up as much as they are calling him. This seems a stretch, though hardly an impossibility.
now that I know what I’m without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life
This block makes me twitch, although it really is too easy to jump to the quick conclusion that "real" means real in the way we use it. Though "Breathe into me and make me real" could refer to the re-realing of Earth, it may refer to the others wanting that same sort of treatment, or simply that the singers do not feel real (not in the real/unreal sense, but in the sense of existence) without him.
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead
"Life among the dead" may refer to the unreal. If Water is the origin of all unreals, then perhaps it is merely through him that it continues to be? This feels wrong; but presently it is the only interpretation I have come up with.
Now we arrive at "the discourse." This worries me, because I'm not sure I understand it. Pending consulting somebody with greater analytical skills than myself, I am making no statements one way or another, except to state that I do in fact believe that the Male Singer here is Water.
Male Singer:
all this time I can't believe I couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
Female Singer:
I’ve been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything
Male Singer:
without a thought without a voice without a soul
???(mutated voice, maybe male singer, maybe female singer, maybe both):
don't let me die here
Male Singer:
there must be something more
Female Singer:
bring me to life
Pending.
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
(Bring me to life)
I’ve been living a lie, there’s nothing inside
(Bring me to life)
Unsure. My possibilities here are that life as an Unreal in and of itself is living a lie and that there is nothing truly to it, or that life without Water is empty? Maybe there has been some deception in the way they have been... acting? Behaving? As I said, unsure.
I am still more than slightly confused, but I think I have drawn at least some reasonable conclusions. I shall have to consult my comrades and see what they think about this...
I have begun a preliminary analysis of this song. Notes follow:
Lyrics:
Initial points worth noting:
For most of the song there is a male background singer (indicated by parenthesis) who I initially had ignored. However, where the parts are divided into "Male Singer:" and "Female Singer:," the two have a discourse. I didn't notice this at first, but it may be important. I have hypothesized that the male singer may be Water. In the Post album, he seems to fall into the background in all things, but here he seems to come to the foreground, actually speaking, rather than being a mere recipient of a message.
how can you see into my eyes like open doors
leading you down into my core
where I’ve become so numb without a soul my spirit sleeping somewhere cold
until you find it there and lead it back home
Pending a better way to phrase my thoughts...
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
We asked Fire the question "What have you become?" Our response was effectively nothing. Mayhaps had we asked the same thing of any of the other miscreant women, we would have gotten the same answer. I wonder, in retrospect, what we would have gotten if we had asked Water this question.
Regardless, the interplay of the male voice in here is eerie. If one takes the male to be Water in any context, then he is equally lost, and he is calling to them to wake him up as much as they are calling him. This seems a stretch, though hardly an impossibility.
now that I know what I’m without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life
This block makes me twitch, although it really is too easy to jump to the quick conclusion that "real" means real in the way we use it. Though "Breathe into me and make me real" could refer to the re-realing of Earth, it may refer to the others wanting that same sort of treatment, or simply that the singers do not feel real (not in the real/unreal sense, but in the sense of existence) without him.
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead
"Life among the dead" may refer to the unreal. If Water is the origin of all unreals, then perhaps it is merely through him that it continues to be? This feels wrong; but presently it is the only interpretation I have come up with.
Now we arrive at "the discourse." This worries me, because I'm not sure I understand it. Pending consulting somebody with greater analytical skills than myself, I am making no statements one way or another, except to state that I do in fact believe that the Male Singer here is Water.
Male Singer:
all this time I can't believe I couldn't see
kept in the dark but you were there in front of me
Female Singer:
I’ve been sleeping a thousand years it seems
got to open my eyes to everything
Male Singer:
without a thought without a voice without a soul
???(mutated voice, maybe male singer, maybe female singer, maybe both):
don't let me die here
Male Singer:
there must be something more
Female Singer:
bring me to life
Pending.
(Wake me up)
Wake me up inside
(I can’t wake up)
Wake me up inside
(Save me)
call my name and save me from the dark
(Wake me up)
bid my blood to run
(I can’t wake up)
before I come undone
(Save me)
save me from the nothing I’ve become
(Bring me to life)
I’ve been living a lie, there’s nothing inside
(Bring me to life)
Unsure. My possibilities here are that life as an Unreal in and of itself is living a lie and that there is nothing truly to it, or that life without Water is empty? Maybe there has been some deception in the way they have been... acting? Behaving? As I said, unsure.
I am still more than slightly confused, but I think I have drawn at least some reasonable conclusions. I shall have to consult my comrades and see what they think about this...