"Fear of a Blank Planet" as written by and Steven John Wilson....
Sunlight coming through the haze
No gaps in the blind
To let it inside
The bed is unmade
Some music still plays
TV, yeah it's always on
A flicker on the screen
A movie actress screams
I'm basking in the shit flowing out of it
I'm stoned in the mall again
Terminally bored
Shuffling round the stores
And shoplifting is getting so last year's thing
Xbox is a god to me
A finger on the switch
My mother is a bitch
My father gave up ever trying to talk to me
Don't try engaging me
The vaguest of shrugs
The prescription drugs
You'll never find
a person inside
My face is mogadon
Curiosity
has given up on me
I'm tuning out desires
The pills are on the rise
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
I'm through with pornography
The acting is lame
The action is tame
Explicitly dull
Arousal annulled
Your mouth should be boarded up
Talking all day
With nothing to say
Your shallow proclamations
All misinformation
My friend says he wants to die
He's in a band
They sound like Pearl Jam
The clothes are all black
The music is crap
In school I don't concentrate
And sex is kinda fun,
but just another one
of all the empty ways
of using up a day
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
Bipolar disorder
Can't deal with the boredom
Bipolar disorder
Can't deal with the boredom
You don't try to be liked
You don't mind
You feel no sun
You steal a gun
To kill time
You're somewhere, you're nowhere
You don't care
You catch the breeze
You still the leaves
So now where?
No gaps in the blind
To let it inside
The bed is unmade
Some music still plays
TV, yeah it's always on
A flicker on the screen
A movie actress screams
I'm basking in the shit flowing out of it
I'm stoned in the mall again
Terminally bored
Shuffling round the stores
And shoplifting is getting so last year's thing
Xbox is a god to me
A finger on the switch
My mother is a bitch
My father gave up ever trying to talk to me
Don't try engaging me
The vaguest of shrugs
The prescription drugs
You'll never find
a person inside
My face is mogadon
Curiosity
has given up on me
I'm tuning out desires
The pills are on the rise
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
I'm through with pornography
The acting is lame
The action is tame
Explicitly dull
Arousal annulled
Your mouth should be boarded up
Talking all day
With nothing to say
Your shallow proclamations
All misinformation
My friend says he wants to die
He's in a band
They sound like Pearl Jam
The clothes are all black
The music is crap
In school I don't concentrate
And sex is kinda fun,
but just another one
of all the empty ways
of using up a day
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
Bipolar disorder
Can't deal with the boredom
Bipolar disorder
Can't deal with the boredom
You don't try to be liked
You don't mind
You feel no sun
You steal a gun
To kill time
You're somewhere, you're nowhere
You don't care
You catch the breeze
You still the leaves
So now where?
Lyrics submitted by CoyoteLongshot, edited by Octavarium64
"Fear of a Blank Planet" as written by Steven John Wilson
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Don’t let the boy listen to heavy metal. He might start thinking for himself. Don’t let him stay at his friends house he might develop social confidence. Don’t let him play games, they distract him. Wait he’s not listening? He’s doing poorly in school? Give him some adderal, Maybe he will focus some more. We can’t possibly blame a failing school system that we put together.
Now this boy needs to take stimulants to keep him as mentally sharp as the rest of the world. He can’t possibly succeed without them. And if he doesn’t succeed then he will be a no body. If he is insignificant on a grand spectrum he feels worthless. Why are they so ignorant to his escapism? The poor boy feels like he is dying inside, and chooses to ignore all of his problems by playing video games, listening to loud music, and staying shut in from the entire world. He escapes into the very few things that the world is trying to take away. Everyone knows this isn’t healthy, but few realize that the alternative is death. The world has shut him away. He no longer can deal with it. There’s doctors trying to figure out what they can pump into him that will fix this, but it’s not him that’s made any errors. He’s just a kid. No longer innocent, but now a victim of a world who doesn’t know how to function.
-------------
Lunatics run this world. I’ve fucking had It.
-1
Agree. And the song is about problems a kid faces in a world like this.
I think the whole album is about that, even suicide.
Agree. And the song is about problems a kid faces in a world like this.
I think the whole album is about that, even suicide.
Lyrically, the song doesn't leave much to speculate about. It's a comment on modern American culture, or more specifically, the effect of said culture on today's youth. The song is written through the eyes of a troubled teenager, growing up saturated with violence and sex from the mass media and dependent on medication (Presumably anti-depressants, given the references to things like disconnection from friends and family and the overall dark outlook of the whole song). The title just reinforces my point, "Blank Planet" probably meaning a world dependent on technology and shallow, materialistic values.
Musically, the song is great. It's instantly become one of my favorite PT songs, and I can't wait to get the whole album when it comes out.
But the lyrics submission (early and possibly in error; plus bad formatting) and the comment "This is one of my favorite PT songs, and I can't wait to get the whole album when it comes out". Meh.
-1
They're both numb and wondering why they can't feel anything. AP thinks that by striving to perfect his body that he will somehow become more human and that by killing others he will stimulate some sort of feeling. FOAB feels that he has tried to connect with people in the standard ways and that it has all been in vain. He really just gives up and accepts his numbness (convinced that there is no person inside) and eventually gives up entirely on life.
I think the biggest difference is that AP is born without emotion...he is truly a psychopath and has no compassion for other humans whatsoever. FOAB is a product of a broken home and a broken society (the whole album is such an interesting comment on growing up today in the computer age).
I'm glad you posted this...I wouldn't have thought of this otherwise...
AP stands for what? Is that the name of the main character of the album?
"How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here"
"The prescription drugs
You'll never find a person inside"
The entire song is fairly straightforward. Really, I think the narrator has legit reasons to be depressed, and sees the medications for what they are - distraction, numbing agents, something to bury the real issues and himself, and consequently, he sees many things in life just like that. He sees society for all its bullshit and emptiness, its want to just turn away and bury things in meaningless sense stimuli to numb pain and distract. And he's clearly missing something fundamental and important to him. Maybe he doesn't even know what that is anymore. Pretty terrible.
Great song.
And the missing thing is thinking about inside and what is out there, as Wilson said about the album in wikipedia.
Sunlight coming through the haze
No gaps in the blinds
To let it inside
The bed is unmade, some music still plays
TV, yeah it's always on
A flicker of the screen
A movie actor screams
I'm basking in the shit flowing out of it
I'm stoned in the mall again
Terminally bored
Shuffling around the stores
And shoplifting is getting so last year’s thing
Xbox is a god to me
My finger on the switch
My mother is a bitch
My father gave up ever trying to talk to me
Don't try engaging me
The vaguest of shrugs
The prescription drugs
You'll never find a person inside
My face is smothered on
Curiosity is good enough for me
I'm tuning out his eyes
Pills are on the rise
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
I'm through with pornography
The acting is lame
The action is tame
Explicitly dull, or rather a lull
Your mouth should be boarded up
Talking all day with nothing to say
Your shallow proclamations
All misinformation
My friend says he wants to die
He's in a band, they sound like Pearl Jam
Their clothes are all black
The music is crap
In school I don't concentrate
And sex is kinda fun, but just another one
Of all the empty ways of using up the day
How can I be sure I'm here?
The pills that I've been taking confuse me
I need to know that someone sees that
There's nothing left, I simply am not here
Bipolar disorder
Can't be any boarder
Bipolar disorder
Can't be any boarder
Don’t try to be liked
You don't mind
You feel no sun
You steal a gun
To kill time
You're somewhere
You're no where
You don't care
You catch the breeze
It still relieves
So now where?
I can't wait for the release of the album - I really look forward to another album that tell's a story and is not just another patch-work of various songs.
In the coda at the end, I read the lyrics as 3rd-person.
An interesting song. I hope the rest of the album is at least this good.