18 Meanings
Add Yours
Follow
Share
Q&A
Lips of Ashes Lyrics
Paralysed
Lips of Ashes
Synchronised
Blue vein crashes
Touching you inside
Idolised
Black Eyes fading
You and I
Connection failing
I drill down inside
Lips of Ashes
Synchronised
Blue vein crashes
Black Eyes fading
You and I
Connection failing
Song Info
Submitted by
tabuckt On Dec 04, 2005
More Porcupine Tree
Trains
Blackest Eyes
Arriving Somewhere But Not Here
The Sound Of Muzak
A Smart Kid
Add your song meanings, interpretations, facts, memories & more to the community.
I thought my stomach would explode when I first heard the intro of this song. It sounds sooo wonderful.
Anyway, without repeating what is already said I want to add a personal thought about it: It's in general a kind of love song. The protagonist of the song fell in love with a woman, but he knew that he would never be able to be together with her ("You and I - Connection failing"). So he murdered her and kept her corpse at home, that's where the song starts. He looks at her dead body and starts to touch it. He can even get into the wounds with his hands, which is way closer then he would be able to a living body ("I drill down inside"). In other words: He can finally do what he would have never been able to when she was alive. It's very sick on the on hand, but on the other hand a very beautiful and intensive description of love which also shows the desperation you have when this love isn't returned. How far you would like to go just to fulfill this dream.
Lyrically and musically one of the best songs I've ever heard.
The best theory I've heard is that this song refers to a British doctor, Harold Shipman, who killed hundreds of his patients by overdosing them on morphine and other drugs and watched them die. This fits quite well with the imagery of veins, dead bodies and "drilling down inside."
i think that this song is about the rape and murdering act itself if you are going according to the theme of this album...
"Paralyesd" maybe he uses some sort of rape drug that makes his victims paralysed "Lips of ashes" i don't think that she is already dead i think it means she will be dead.. ashes reffers to a corpse that's for sure "Synchronized" he syncs this moment into his brain, makes it a memory in "The Creator Has a Mastertape" there is a line that says : "He CAPTURED and collected things" i guess that what he captured are memories of what he's done.. and "Lips of Ashes" is one of this memories "Blue vein crashes" maybe because of the drugs the veins are swollend so it seems to him like they're crashing
"Touching you inside" this is where the act of rape starts the next part of the song is discribing what happens in the act itself
"Idolized" this is somthing he worships maybe the girl or girls in general "Black eyes fading" if u reffer this to "Blackest Eyes" to me when he says "black eyes" it means dead eyes but why are they fading if she's not alive anymore? that's because it once again reffers to the future like in the second line "lips of ashes" "You and I Connection failing" she's dying so for him the connection is failing
"I drill down inside" as in the line before the second part of the song "touching you inside" it reffers to the act of rape itself, this line is a closer for the second part it starts and it ends in the same meaning.
but that's what i think........
If SW has explained that this is a concept album about killers, rapists etc., this song can't be but about rape&kill. Check Frank West's case in wiki...
Ugh, no. It is not a concept about serial killers/rapists. There are about 6 songs on the album that follow that theme, but that's not really the full view at all. I really don't believe that PT would make something just that dark and morbid just for the sake of being dark and morbid. They don't want to be some shitty "hardcore edgy" band. They're far more intelligent than that. Really. I mean if you would just listen to the album with an open mind and forget all of that serial killer/rapist stuff you've heard, you'll see that it's about...
Ugh, no. It is not a concept about serial killers/rapists. There are about 6 songs on the album that follow that theme, but that's not really the full view at all. I really don't believe that PT would make something just that dark and morbid just for the sake of being dark and morbid. They don't want to be some shitty "hardcore edgy" band. They're far more intelligent than that. Really. I mean if you would just listen to the album with an open mind and forget all of that serial killer/rapist stuff you've heard, you'll see that it's about much more. Here's what Stephen Wilson has said:
"[The Album Title] comes from…it's related to some of lyrics. It's about people on the fringes, on the edges of humanity and society. I have an interest in serial killers, child molesters and wife beaters…not in what they did but in the psychology of why, what caused them to become unhinged and twisted? Why are they unable to empathize? It's [In Absentia] sort of a metaphor - there's something missing, a black hole, a cancer in their soul. It's an absence in the soul."
The album is not about serial killers, rapists and wife beaters as it may seem at first glance. It's about the loss of a soul. Really. From what I've been able to actually parse so far, not every song is about a serial killer, rapist or wife beater, but every song that I've been able to fully digest and parse is in some metaphorical way about the loss of a soul. Whether it be the lack of ability to care for others(many songs), yourself (prodigal) - the loss of the soul of music (The Sound of Muzak), or whatever.
I think this song is about necrophilia isn't it? It's from a concept album about a serial killer/rapist.
Lips of ashes being the lips of dead people.
Probably my favorite PT song.
Yes, I believe you may be onto something GroovyJude. I've always imagined this song to be about drugs and/or death. Haven't known or heard anything much further than that though.
I have a question. In the beginning, what are those weird strings? Is that a specific instrument? I know a hammered dulcimer is also used towards the beginning, but what about in the VERY beginning?
I know that this is a response to a very old post, but I felt inclined to reply anyways hoping you would still see this, since I am always intrigued by sounds that remain a bit vague. What you're hearing on the absolute very beginning is the dulcimer in combination with tubular bells.
I know that this is a response to a very old post, but I felt inclined to reply anyways hoping you would still see this, since I am always intrigued by sounds that remain a bit vague. What you're hearing on the absolute very beginning is the dulcimer in combination with tubular bells.
it's a santoor, at least it sounds like it... it's an indian stringed instrument, google it
it's a santoor, at least it sounds like it... it's an indian stringed instrument, google it
While I do not exactly have an answer to your question, something interesting is that intro is GREATLY expanded, and clearly based off of, 43553E99.01 by Bass Communion, one of Steven Wilson's other side projects. It's awesome, check it out.
While I do not exactly have an answer to your question, something interesting is that intro is GREATLY expanded, and clearly based off of, 43553E99.01 by Bass Communion, one of Steven Wilson's other side projects. It's awesome, check it out.
By the way, when I say drugs, it seems unclear to me whether it is heroin or in fact morphine, as GroovyJude suggests. I'm beginning to think it's the latter now.
necrophilia i bet .. or something .. shes sedated. hes fucking her. this song conjures terrible images It's beautiful, yes. but it makes my stomach churn too
In Open Car, the girl he has meaningless sex with is smoking. The sex eases his pain. "I drill down inside" could have more than one meaning-sexual &/or violent.
isn't it strange, that pt hardly alludes to people that are still alive or that many people still remember..
christine keeler (piano lessons..i guess most of u know but for those who don't,,,) harold shipman.. Marshall Herff Applewhite (leader of "heavens gate", the one who talks in last chance to evacuate,,, you should check out his speeches on youtube by the way, i found the exact extract that was used in the song.. secondly u'll find much interesting trivia about their religion and the numerous suicides...).. anyway, maybe i just never heard about these people before because i was born in 1991...