Land of the Dead

This song is beautiful and brilliant! The grammar is a bit tricky, but if we follow the action of the song its meaning becomes clearer. In short, as it's title suggests, it's a description of the Land of the Dead. But what is the Land of the Dead? The lyrics answer this, and it's pretty sweet.

First, it describes a location using the imagery of a dark, motionless forest. Then there is an echo there, as faint as "deepest sleeper's" breath, as cold as death. I believe this is a metaphor, but it will make more sense in a moment.

Then comes the description of the paths of shadows, where there is no moon, where no footprints are ever laid, where there are never the sounds of beating hearts. The only sound here comes once an age, a profound sigh when the age dies or ends. Hence the echo in the "forest" from before; both are descriptions of the same place, but the place is nonphysical—nothing there has a heartbeat, nothing can leave a footprint on its paths, and the only sound mentioned isn't actually a sound. "Deepest sleeper" seems like a metaphor for someone dead, and the echo was described as being as faint as their breath and as cold as death. The dead don't breathe, so this fits nicely with long paths made of shadows that can't be set foot on. On top of that, this non-sound occurs when an era ends. The notion of a period of time "dying" and resounding in this non-space is important for cluing us into what is being described.

Shadows, too, are a metaphor, each of the four times they are mentioned. Shadows color the trees of this nonphysical place (colored by the absence of color) and they make up its unwalkable paths. They are about to become key.

"Far, far it lies, the Land of Waiting where the Dead sit..." (note the capitalization), "...in their thought's shadow, by no moon lit.

The Land of Waiting is inhabited by the Dead, which seems pretty straightforward at first, a place where people go when they die. But what are they doing there? Sitting in their thought's shadow, or rather, in the nonexistence of their thoughts.

This brings us to the last lines, which I found stunning:

"Upon the plain, there rushed forth and high Shadows at the end of night and mirrored in the sky Far far away beyond might of day..."

These were difficult to understand until the nature of the shadow metaphor became clear. If the place described so far is one of pure nonexistence, it makes sense. Night and day here seem to refer to life and death, hence the "shadows" at the end of night; they're mirrored in the sky, because the night sky is where we see the void of space, the closest thing to pure nothingness, empty space a sort of reflection of nonspace. They rush forth and high at the end of night just as nothingness consumes us when we die. And it finishes:

"And there lay the land of the dead of mortal cold decay"

This time, neither the land nor the dead are capitalized, which is deliberate. The dead, decaying in mortal space, are distinguished from the Dead in the Land of Waiting. Also important is that this is the last song on the album. The album takes us on a journey, and it ends with a description of what waits for us at the end of life: nothing. The land of the dead is pure nonexistence, but the way it is so elegantly described here in Tolkein-themed language is as deeply beautiful as the song itself.

I love it!