Alone Down There

this song reminds me of lord of the flies by william golding. the part in the novel where simon is talking to the pig's head.

I have this really odd image in my head. It comes from the line "my name is you"

Someone is given the chance to look down into hell, and they see their own self down there, all alone and miserable. Overcome by greif, they make a deal with the devil to go into hell so that their own self will not be alone any longer.

I see it as a loop.

It seems to have references of hell, butbit's more of a drug song to me. The song seems to be sung from the persective of two people: the drug dealer (aka devil's apprentice), and the customer. But from the beginning, there's a dead person. So it's probably about a man going suicidal with drugs to join his friend.

KICK THE SHIT OUT OF PPL WHO CALL MODEST MOUSE EMO

The creepy feeling of the harmony in the beginning is unmatched. That and the mention of the flies and "down there" should point to death. In my opinion, the first part of the song is being sung by a corpse or ghost of sorts, a friend of the singer who died and is beckoning to the singer. The singer wants to join the deceased because of grief, but he knows he will regret his suicidal tendencies.

selling your soul to pleasure exchange for getting a diesease taking someone with you to rot

I listen to this song constantly and play it on guitar almost everyday heh.

To me, this song is about a man who's lost himself, he looks in the mirror and sees who he was, but he can't find his way back to the life he had before. "I don't want you to be alone down there" to me is saying that his soul is broken for what he's become. This man gave himself over to depression or anger or something along the lines and now he's totally lost himself, and his Soul doesn't want to leave him alone.

Surely (as has already been said by a few people) this is about a deal with the devil?

More specifically, I think it's a retelling of the Faust myth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust

from wikipedia: Faust is bored and disappointed. He decides to call on the Devil for further knowledge and magic powers with which to indulge all the pleasure and knowledge of the world. In response, the Devil's representative, Mephistopheles, appears. He makes a bargain with Faust: Mephistopheles will serve Faust with his magic powers for a term of years, but at the end of the term, the devil will claim Faust's soul and Faust will be eternally damned. During the term of the bargain, Faust makes use of Mephistopheles in various ways. In many versions of the story, particularly Goethe's drama, Mephistopheles helps him to seduce a beautiful and innocent girl, usually named Gretchen, whose life is ultimately destroyed.

I feel like this song is about somebody's inner struggle and conversations with themselves. The eerie atmosphere and way Isaac sings at the beginning, to me, seem like someone hearing voices or talking to themselves. I view it as a person's relationship between their mind and body. Sometimes our minds feel so detached it's like we're watching ourselves from outside our body. As the "flies gather" around this person-suggesting he is dying or being slowly broken- the mind is helpless to watch as the body decays and dies. Our bodies are always slowly getting older and wearing away, and there is nothing we can do to intervene. The mind pities the body and wishes it had the capabilities to help out, saying "I don't want you to be alone down there". Some people are so desperate to stop this process that they wish they could make a pact with the devil for eternal life or something of the sort.

I may be looking a little deep in to this, but that's my two cents.

Modest Mouse has another song called 'heart cooks brain' and i think that this may be applying a similar comparison/juxtaposition. I feel like he his brain convinced his heart (or vice versa) to do something that killed him (literally or figuratively) and now both (heart/brain, body/soul) are dead - "flies gather around you and me too" "You ask me what size it is, not what i sell" - kinda like how a salesman is just giving you a spiel of all these great features when you don't know what you're actually buying. basically he lied to himself about what he was getting into "i don't want you to be alone down there" - i think his decision killed his soul but keep his body alive. i don't think he wants to live with what he did that just killed his soul so he kills himself (just realized this as i typed it) "devil's apprentice, he gave me some credit, he fed me a line and i'll probably regret it" - devil's apprentice = devil's advocate which can argue any point (even if he knows it's wrong), so (again) he talked himself into something he knew was wrong