Group Four

Yeah, it's about a security guard. More specifically, it's about a security guard basically living out his days in the darkness with a security system that, by the lyrics, seems to border on having sentience. He's sipping his tea, watching the monitors, thinking about all the other things in his life that he could be doing, and then throwing those thoughts away because he's not hired to think. Ultimately he feels pretty listless about this whole thing, daydreaming the hours away.

Meanwhile the security system of the building is living a simple life. There are cameras and alarms and whatever else connected up to its "brain" like a nervous system. It views the security guard as its God (which is actually pretty interesting if you think about the similarities in pronunciation with some English accents.) This security system, again having its own little thoughts, is pondering its own function and waiting for the moment can it can be of some use (ready to sing, ready to set off the alarms or whatever else if someone breaks in.)

Then in the last portion of the song, something mysterious begins happening...It may be that an intruder finally does show up. Or maybe not. But whatever it is, the song takes on a spiritual, ritualistic, orgasmic quality as the security system plunges into a growing frenzy. Its little electric heart is beating faster and faster and faster as it repeatedly prays to its security guard god to open up the world, to bring something down. You can almost see a woman dancing in the moonlight with a long staff in her hand.

The security system desires this thing more and more and more until finally ------

Ahhhhhhhh... release!

Apparently God the Security Guard heard the prayer. In the regular world, in meat-space, this prayer was probably just some kind of notifier on a screen. Totally mundane. You see, he's so busy feeling listless, so busy daydreaming, that he has no idea what kind of world exists right under his nose.

There you go. That's Group Four.

this song really turns me on it's on my sexy playlist :3

Ok this is what i feel about this song. There are two different stories here. One one side we have this simple guy, working on the night shift of a security company, monitorizing and doing control walks on some kind of building. He is really tired of this job (fisical and mentally) and he dreams about being out.

On the other side there is this great vocalist girl, getting ready for going out on a show. She just dreams about being on stage and is doing some warm ups.

The climax of the song belongs to both of them. They reach the same feelings by accomplishing such different dreams in such different situations and I think this is what the song is all about. There is no recipe or guide to reach determined feelings, and even the most opposite people are the same sometimes...

Group 4 is still around. It's called G4S now (Group 4 Securicor). G4S doesn't just do your everyday security guard stuff. They have warzone force protection contracts (like Blackwater/Xe, Dyncorp, etc.). I'm heading out to Kosovo with them soon, then hopefully Afghanistan at some point.

I like this song both for the music, and that it strikes a chord with me. I feel like it's talking about being a little bored with the monotony of your current security assignment, but still feeling the call of adventure and action around the world pushing you to roam. Not being able to escape it because it's all you think about anymore (even during sex, when he says "To think that I lay next to you / Wasting time when I could do / A simple job in strip lights"). Strikes home to me since I chose to be with a girlfriend instead of taking a nice assignment, and she ended up cheating on me later. So it was just wasting time.

I've heard this song's supposed to be critical of G4S, but I don't hear it that way and I love it; the lines "I train myself in martial arts / As advertised / I reinforce my softened parts / As advertised" give me a laugh every time. And I interpreted the "free to roam... and magazines" to be magazines of firearms, as if your ammo is your "passport". A great song with a James Bond movie intro sound to it.

I dunno why, but this song just strikes a chord in me. For some reason whenever I feel really low or blue I just put it on and I get lost in it. I think it has something to do with how it builds up and just explodes at the end, almost spiritual.

To me, Mezzanine is somewhat of a concept album, entirely about sex. Group Four , specifically after 5 minutes in, is the 'climax' of the entire album, lasting until the end of the song.

I agree with 'junocake' so much, it has a spiritual element that you can so easily get lost in. To me, that is what the song is about. About being so lost in love, depression, thought or whatever that you become distant and in your own world. Most of the verses conjure up this image in me of a person standing completely still while the world around them is going at 1,000 mph. Its about being lost in yourself, in the calm eye of the storm.

There's a confusion I get out of it too though, which is why I think of it as being about love. He "trains himself in martial arts...to reinforce his softer parts" as a means of toughening himself up, yet at the same time he "see[s] to bolts [and] puts keys to locks" as if he wants to shut himself away from it altogether.

Yeah, I think its about love and being lost in it. But I suppose the beauty of it is that anyone can relate to it in any different way. I personally can't see the depression aspect to it though.

Group Four were a security firm that used to Operate in the UK, maybe just in Bristol. Certainly havent seen them for a fair few years now tho, so maybe they're disbanded. This ties in the first couple of lines about Relay Camera's.

Clearly this song is about working as a security guard. The reference to the security company Group Four suggests this. Alongside:

• "relay cameras"
• "sober tea"
• "martial arts"

Don't forget Mezzanine is an album about paranoia. One could only imagine the paranoia a security guard feels when he's not

feeling up to the job. "My ears know that my eyes are closed" suggests the guard is lax on the job. Infact, in all probability, this is

probably a song about severe cannabis / meth psychosis, where the security guard must allow his mind to wander, yet still do his

job correctly.

"Flickering I roam" suggests a kind of twilight zone between the guard's imagination and the real-world. Furthermore, the "glazed lane" sees a "world" inside the guard's mind, as if to suggest he can navigate "Far away", "Elsewhere", but still attend to what's happening around him.

Overall I think the song's about playing the role of Big Brother, but the real Big Brother makes sure you suffocate from trying to immitate him. The song's about How you can't be yourself for one minute without someone seeing what you're doing. How we need a "sixth sense" to intuit the world because our five senses have been compromised by mass surveillance.

Two mentions of Light are seen aswell. "Daylight" & "Striplight". Alternatively the song could be about his lover requiring him to work a shitty night job, as opposed to a "simple job in striplights", where he could be happy. Yet the fact he says "Daylight sends me home" implies when he finishes work, he is happy. Overall the song is a message of hope. That no matter how bad your working circumstances are, that there is Light at the end of it all!

I do think he is a security guard, but he works in a mental hospital or a home, over night, where this girl is staying. She's catatonic due to injury or mental illness, except every now and then she sings, and she beautiful. And he is taken with her. "To think that I lay next to you..." when I could be doing something else other than this job (a simple job in strip lights...maybe some sort of construvtion job). And when the day comes, his shift is up and he goes home...flickering I roam. I always picture him, on a closed circuit B&W monitor, walking the hallways, the picture kind of grainy...flickering I roam.