| Manchester Orchestra – The Alien Lyrics | 6 years ago |
|
The song is a story, with each verse painting a new frame to a sequence of events. "The lights were low enough you guessed" implies that this was a recollection of the past. The main character swaps out their conscience or feelings, with medication, in order to numb their mind and thoughts. The band is based and from my area in Georgia, which includes Rome, Lawrenceville, and a highway exit called pleasant hill. Pleasant Hill is well known here for having some of the most messed up traffic, and lots of accidents due to confusing road ways. "You forced the traffic to erase your family Demons" means that the main character stepped in front of the traffic, in an attempt to kill themselves. "Do you need me" might be the conversation the man has with god when he survives. The next visual as the character comes to is the first officer responding to the accident caused by the main. He remembers the offices as a man who bullied his younger brother, and feels remorse that he is face to face with him now, after their history, and after such a low point. The shock sets in and he is unable speak as he looks at the aftermath. As this happens, children see the man, and call him by a nickname, and the songs title. Alien. As we snap to the present, the first line is slightly changed. "The lights are low enough, you guessed" The man is now in a mental hospital, living with guilt of what he did. There isn't enough medication for him to forget/numb it. "The Doctor asked about your Ears" This reveals that the man doesn't have ears, and is disformed, which is why the kids call him an alien. His mother told him it was God that took them, when in reality it was his drunken, abusize father with a pair of scissors. "Were you just finally letting go? Did you mean to take out all those people with you." The doctor asks if he was trying to die? And if he meant to cause the accidents that took other lives. It is the ending that repeats as the man pleads he "Didn't mean to" Oh I didn't mean to. The parting words change the tempo dramatically. Time is here to take your last amendments and believe them on your own Time is here to take you by the hand and leave you there alone Time has come to take the last commandment and to carve it into stone Time has come to take you by the hand and leave you here alone -----I showed the song and video to my close friend, and walked to another room. By the time I had made it back, it had moved him to tears. I didn't ask why, as I know he didn't want me to catch him. Just days later at the age of 22, he committed suicide. This song has meant a lot to me since then. And the story seems a lot more clear after such loss. |
|
* This information can be up to 15 minutes delayed.