March of the Fire Ants

This is my fave from Remission...and overall Mastodon. It doesn't really seem to scream a message out to me or anything, but that doesn't matter to me. It's still awesome. And I didn't know Troy played bass too.

BONE! GRAVE! No idea, but I loved hearing it.

"as passion encircles the daily storm the heart bleeds and droughts do not"

I think this is about how people can pour their hearts into something without reward.

"bone grave bone engraved stone grave stone engraved"

This follows the theme of the first verse by showing the ultimate reward for all our work, death. It's ironic because the person burying you is working over your body, seeing full well what his reward is for his work, knowing that someone will be doing the same for him.

"all circles created with intention an ocean turns yellow it soothes the eye"

I feel like this refers to Hell, and how in Dante's Inferno all seven circles are created by the intentions of it's inhabitants. An ocean turning yellow could be referring to the lake of sulfur that the damned are cast in. It could be potentially soothing to your eyes, seeing it knowing that your body and soul will never have to work in futility again.

The song is written from the darkest, most depressed and hopeless place imaginable

"as passion encircles the daily storm the heart bleeds and droughts do not"

Through the chaos and darkness of what the individual perceives to be life, he still has a passion and an ambition.

But no matter how hard he tries and how passionate he is, he gets nothing in return and reality doesn't reciprocate. A drought of reward and feelings of success

"bone grave bone engraved stone grave stone engraved"

Bone grave: I'm dead inside Bone engraved: I'm destined for failure and mediocrity, it's the fate carved into my bones Stone grave: After my drought and failure I'll die Stone engraved: I'll be remembered as a failure, it'll be on my tombstone

"all circles created with intention"

I'm fairly certain one of the boys had a bad acid trip when writing this song

This at once alludes to cycles, and the cyclical nature of the individuals perceived failure, as well as his perception that a higher power or nature itself designated despair and failure as hit fate. As if it was designed that way

"an ocean turns yellow it soothes the eye"

An ocean turning yellow isn't an allusion to how pissy life is. Water turns yellow when sand is very close to the surface of the water.

The allegory being that the ocean is life

He perceives life as extremely shallow and simple. There's nothing else to life, he's figured it out. It soothes the minds eye that he doesn't need to search for further complexity

Very. Dark. Shit

The best song on Remission, hands down. Anywho, Mastodon's lyrics are always so ominous and seemingly meaningless, and he just needs syllables to go with the snare shots in the songs. shrug

good guitar work :)

What I imagine when I hear the song and lyrics is a planet Earth that is completely dried up due to global warming caused by pollution. Mankind is nearly completely extinct, and they wander aimlessly across the desert Earth, in search of water. When they finally find water, it is yellow and highly contaminated with decay and toxins, but they are grateful to drink from it. Yeah, I have quite the imagination.

Its about pollution, possibly about some mutant fire ants burning and destroying the Earth.

Or "fire ants" could metaphorical for someone who destroys the Earth.

Ddadutta: Mastodon usually name songs according to what they sound like: ie motherpuncher, trainwreck.

Anyway, kudos on the enviromentalism thing, i hadnt got a clue what it was about before that....

Amazing song /,,/

Argh had an idea:

'all circles created with intention an ocean turns yellow it soothes the eye'

In the first verse there was a 'drought', in the second theres a flood...

everything is coming full circle; theres weather cycles; (all that had evaporated in the drought has come full circle)

These were created with intention? meaning it had to happen eventually? :S dunno about that rly...

an ocean formed by the floods then dries up... turning yellow: desert

And it soothes the eye cos ya'know hes used to it n stuff :S

Just an idea... floods and droughts could be metaphorical.. maybe he's turning all of lifes problems and whatnot into a weather metaphor: 'daily storm'.

On an unrelated noe: Who else hates the video for this?