When the night shows
The signals grow on radios
All the strange things
They come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
Still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot
Even choose a side.
I took the old track
The hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
They were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
And as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
Was warm and soaked the crowd.
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
In any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
Use up what we used to be.
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
In any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
The signals grow on radios
All the strange things
They come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
Still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot
Even choose a side.
I took the old track
The hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
They were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
And as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
Was warm and soaked the crowd.
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
In any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
Use up what we used to be.
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
In any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.
Lyrics submitted by txsnowbunny, edited by PrivateBlue
Here Comes The Flood Lyrics as written by Peter Gabriel
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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Here is a snippet of that interview:
When I wrote this song [Here Comes The Flood] I had an obsession with short-wave radio and I was always amazed at the way in which the radio signals would become stronger as daylight faded. I felt as if psychic energy levels would also increase in the night. I had had an apocalyptic dream in which the psychic barriers which normally prevent us from seeing into each others' thoughts had been completely eroded producing a mental flood. Those that had been used to having their innermost thoughts exposed would handle this torrent and those inclined to concealment would drown in it. ('Peter Gabriel' by Armando Gallo, Omnibus Press, 1986.)
So many of the lyrics made sense after reading that!
This would be my choice song for topics of Noetics and Transhumanism, a weary post-apocalyptic tune to slow the massive onslaught of merging connected computing with humanity, of skewering private consciousness for immediate interconnection.
The HCTF scenario is within a generation, and decisions today influence the framework and structures of tomorrow's completely connected crash.
At nightfall, radio signals become clearer and reach further ('signals grow'). Shortwave radio signals, which are analogue and have intercontinental reach, are always liable to 'come and go' in a regular fade-and-return cycle. This waveband carried (still does, for all I know) English service versions of Radio Moscow, Voice of America and some other countries' foreign propaganda stations. And the news these are broadcasting isn't good - it contains harbingers ('early warnings') from distant lands of the coming destruction. These are all the more frightening through being only half-heard through the 'come and go' of the signal. I was a lad when this song was written in the mid-70s, and the Cold War was so pervasive then that many of us doubted we'd make it to adulthood. (Though personally, I'm still waiting for that to happen.)
The physical setting for the song now becomes apparent as a place where land and a restless ocean meet ('starfish', 'tide,' 'tall cliffs'). The starfish have been 'stranded' by something that sounds like a tsunami or earthquake, but overall the song makes clear has mankind is its cause. The 'swollen Easter tide' the starfish await is not only the high spring tide following the low which has stranded them, but also a tide of the dead (religious imagery, from the Easter crucifixion of Jesus).
The wordplay of 'There's no point in direction' links in with 'You cannot even choose a side' - the tumult will engulf us all, no matter which way we turn. There is no escaping this.
The singer decides to take to the sea by boat ('the hollow shoulder'), echoing the way Noah survived the first flood. 'The old track' I think refers to the preference of mesolithic and neolithic people in Britain to travel by sea and river rather than make the relatively difficult journeys by land; or perhaps it refers to Noah's strategy, which worked far back in the past. He sees children massed on the clifftops and just waiting there ('getting older'), having nowhere further to run. What's left for them? To hurl themselves off? Evil is triumphing effortlessly ('jaded underworld') over mankind. 'Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky' sounds like a nuclear submarine (that quintessence of the Cold War) launching a missile ('nail'), and the crowd of children suffering the resultant radioactive fallout.
Now we reach the chorus, which again uses the religious imagery of 'Lord' and the apocalyptic 'flood'. Only Noah's immediate family, out of all the earth, survived the first flood, and the odds are against us surviving this one ('say goodbye to flesh and blood'). If anyone does, it will be those prepared to let go of what they owned ('their island' - everything that formerly kept them safe and secure, above the danger level) in order to survive. It may even refer to us Britons having to give up our country, island nation that we are, to endure. The chorus ends (using further wet/dry imagery) by warning those of us who are enjoying life that our time is running out.
The last verse tells how nightmarish this apocalypse will be, how we'll be defenceless ('have no walls') against it. In the 'flash'/'thunder crash' of the nuclear explosions, we'll panic, seeking a thousand ways of escape ('you're a thousand minds'). At such a time we mustn't be afraid to communicate our emotions - being leaderless, we only have each other ('the actor's gone, there's only you and me') and must now be open and honest about how we feel, to see how we can best work together to try to make it through this. If we lose all hope of survival ('break before the dawn'), everything we were will be used to further the conflict.
Having said that, an alternative interpretation of this verse would be more in line with Mr Gabriel's explanation : all mental barriers ('walls') come down, and other people's minds enter ours like a thundercrash. We're no longer able to fabricate impressions of ourselves in others' perceptions ('the actor's gone'), but are seen for who we truly are, and see others with equal clarity ('there's only you and me'). And those of us who can't stand being known in the full light of this honesty ('if we break before the dawn') will shrivel away to nothing; which will further the common good.
And the song ends on the chorus, and indeed on the downbeat warning of, 'Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.'
The song seems to me to be a powerful but bleak vision of a man-made calamity, with the only hope being that those few who survive will be better people, selfless, honest, cooperative and emotionally open.
" will be those prepared to let go of what they owned ('their island' - everything that formerly kept them safe and secure, above the danger level) in order to survive..."
- Thanks for that interpretation! I was always perplexed by the line:
"It'll be those who gave their island to survive". Your interpretation makes sense. In the end, one accepts the reality of the rising tide and stops hanging on to one's island of security (possessions etc.). Such baggage needs to be stripped in order to move on to a higher consciousness.
The coolest part is, Peter Gabriel went back to Mexico supporting the release of UP. But he OPENED up with HCTF. There he was, looking much older, different band (no Manu Katche? damn!) and visibly reconnecting with the audience he left mesmerized almost a decade before. And yet it was like time hadn't really passed, like he was just continuing the concert he played all those years ago. The crowd was almost inaudibly miming the words, and you could hear Peter's breathing pauses throughout... Pure magic. I'll tell you, this song brings tears to my eyes for a lot of reasons, but this might be the strongest of them... particularly in the line "Don't be afraid to cry at what you see/the actors gone, there's only you and me"... I'll cherish that moment forever.
Peace
@_*
Peace
@_*