• I’ve decided to do in-depth analysis’ of all of Coheed and Cambria studio tracks in chronological order so that myself and others might have a better idea of the story line of the universe and how the songs and the comics connect to each other. I'm going to give a line-by-line (omitting repeated lines) of my interpretation of each song and explain how it corresponds to the comics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time Consumer is an extremely sad song to analyze. It’s increasingly painful if you’ve read the comics and have the visual aspect there to accompany the events of the song. The song itself is told primarily from the viewpoint of Coheed Kilgannon, but also from the viewpoints of Cambria and Jesse Kilgannon. It covers the events happening within the Kilgannon house during and immediately after the events of “Devil in Jersey City’. -------------- “The young stale memories of play: the role to your part.” – (This is Claudio reliving memories of Matthew and Maria, his youngest twins, playing and being happy and pretty much fulfilling the role of kids at that age. The memories, though young, are already stale because there will never be any fresh memories again since the twins will soon be dead.) Librarian find me the pole, the one that kicks your head in. – (This line is arguable in what it means, but it’s generally considered that librarians are people who are very knowledgeable and capable of giving advice. A lot of time, librarians will use a pole with a rubber gripper on the end to reach books at the tops of tall shelves. I imagine this is Claudio reaching out to anyone listening, asking for advice about what to do or at least the means (the pole) to find that advice, even if that advice is painful to hear. To note, it is also speculated that with Cambria being called ‘the Knowledge’, Coheed may be referring to her directly when he says librarian.) “To my own time, role[roll] your own innocence by” – (Despite the accepted lyric being “role”, I feel that this is a play on phonetics as well on words themselves, i.e. ‘roll’ as a verb and ‘role’ as a noun. This really isn’t that far fetched when you really consider how complex Sanchez can be. I think this is essentially Coheed coming back from his reverie and back to the here and now [his own time], and seeing the twins being happy and innocent and basically living to their role as kids. Seeing them roll around and playing, it’s essentially a slap to his face, since he knows what he must do and that he’ll never see their innocence again; it is instead just passing him by.) “Grab on to my sleeve, the one that grabs at your ankle.” – (The poison is starting to take effect and the twins are beginning to convulse and spasm in pain and Coheed realizes just how horrible an end he’s given them, so he holds them steady and asks silently that they just grab onto him and let him hold them until it’s over. As he watches them die, he desperately doesn’t want them to go but all he can do is hold on as we watches them fall away from life.) “Debate to understand that we all have a flaw” – (The children are looking at Coheed with scared and bewildered expressions on their faces. They don’t know what’s happening and they don’t know why it hurts so much, and worst of all they don’t know why Daddy isn’t doing anything to help. He whispers and shushes them and tries to comfort them, but they keep asking [debating] ‘Why?” and Coheed just wishes they could understand why this had to happen, that it’s not their fault they were born with the Sinistar virus [the flaw] inside of them.) “Then fail to represent your life as you know it.” – (Coheed can’t stand to watch as they die. The twins are wracked with pain and die with expressions of hurt and anguish in their faces, not at all a representation of the happiness and innocence that they embodied while alive.) “God grant you one wish: to turn back the time” – (This is a line being thought by Coheed and Cambria together. Coheed is wishing that when the twins meet God, that if he could grant them one wish, that they would wish that time be turned back to before they had to die. Cambria is essentially thinking the same thing, but is instead directing it at Coheed, who is in so much pain right now that she wishes God could just grant that wish for Coheed just so he wouldn’t have to hurt like this.) “Correct and create, making sense of . . .” – (This is Coheed and Cambria essentially saying, even promising, that if God would only turn back time, they would find a way to make sense of everything, to understand and find a way to cure the virus so that the Kilgannon children would never have to die.) “Me and my star, Matthew good night You know by law when you'll be forgiven.” – (This is Coheed saying goodbye to his children. We know it’s him because he says ‘Me and my star’ as opposed to ‘Maria’. This means he’s there with Maria and Matthew directly. We can even envision him holding the children, one in each arm, and looking from Maria and saying “Me and my star…” and then looking to Matthew and saying “Matthew, goodnight.” And after this he promises that they will be forgiven, since they were so very innocent in every way. But since this is Coheed, he swears to the law, since he considers himself to be very lawful and just.) “Maria my star, Matthew goodnight. You know my lord when you'll be forgiven” – (This is Cambria, in the kitchen. Being a powerful psychic, while she is watching Josephine and Patrick in trouble [see: “Devil in Jersey City”] she is also watching what is happening upstairs to Coheed and the twins. She sees them go and says goodbye to each of them, referring to Maria by name since she’s not up there with them. She also swears their forgiveness, but instead of swearing on the law, she swears on God.) “So they pulled your confidence down with those verbal discrepancies.” – (Now we shift to Jesse, in deceased narration, talking to Claudio. We know it is Jesse because of the last line of this verse. This line is basically Jesse acknowledging the pain and alienation Claudio suffers at his high school and how a lot of the other students pick on him and verbally bully him, pulling his confidence down as a result.) “Now and then you'll gain what they've lost through a challenge of unpronounced.” – (I feel that despite popular opinion, ‘unpronounced’ is not coupled with ‘pain’ in the next line, but that instead the challenge in question is quite literally unpronounced by both Claudio’s. It’s basically, and literally saying, ‘a challenge of unpronounced…‘what’?” What this line is saying is that occasionally while Claudio will feel a lack of pride and confidence by only responding to the other students’ jeers and harassment with silence, he also gains courage and support by having Newo, his outgoing girlfriend, pronounce the challenges that Claudio can never seem to say himself. Whenever she does this, even when he doesn’t ask her to, he gains a loyal love for her, a kind of love that the other students have lost by now.) “Pain is only a pulse if you just stop feeling it You might be able to use the very things that make us up” – (This line is actually an overlapping couplet. It is basically two lines that overlap and merge together, in effect mixing the meanings. The first part is “Pain if only a pulse if you just stop feeling it.’ Claudio is known for giving into the pain he feels and constantly blaming himself for the things that are wrong in his life and because of this he often feels powerless and inadequate. What this line means is that Jesse is telling Claudio that all the pain he feels can actually be a source [pulse] of power to him if he could only stop giving into the pain. The second part is “If you just stop feeling it [pain], you might be able to use the very things that make us up.” This is Jesse telling Claudio that if he could learn to use pain as a power source instead of giving into it, then Claudio might be able to use the powers of the Stars [and eventually become the Crowing]. “-things that make us up” refers to the saying that everything and everyone in the universe is made up of stardust. This would actually be more significant in the Amory Wars universe, since the Keywork is a visible example of the life-sustaining power of the Stars. Simplified, these two lines basically say “Claudio, if you would just stop being a wuss, you could become very powerful.”) “Wait, now, here, when will you believe me? I'm merely asking you to help me, when did I say to murder? Wait now, here, please hear me out.” – (This is Coheed talking to Cambria through telepathy after he’s come back downstairs to see that Josephine has returned and is crying [see: “Devil in Jersey City”]. He picks up a hammer and Cambria, realizing he means to use it in Josie, asks him to not use it. He asks her to believe him when he says it’ll be easier this way. Cambria looks into his mind and feels the horrible pain the twins felt as they died and finally agrees to distract Josie so Coheed can use to the hammer to kill her quickly and painlessly.) “Time consumer, time consuming, consume me.” – (This is Coheed’s thoughts as he prepares to swing the hammer. This moment is probably the longest in his life. The coming death consumes time, causing it stretch out into an eternity. Coheed thinks that he wishes he could die instead of Josie and asks that the Time Consumer [Death] consumes his life instead of hers. Of course, it can’t.) Down and out, now. – (He swings the hammer and Josie is quite literally “down and out, now.” The end was quick and painless, unlike that of the twins. As you can see, this song is all about death. In it, Death, as an entity, is referred to as the “Time Consumer”, hence the name of the song.

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