Helicopter

Jesus these are the lyrics from the liner notes:

Take my hand and pray with me

My final days in company. The devil now has come for me, and helicopters circling the scene.

And i pray for rest. Could you pray for us? We know he loves you the best. We know he loves you the best.

The light's inside my cave. I'm tired of my cave.

Oh these drugs they play on me these terrible ways. They don't pay like they used to pay. I used to make it day to day.

No one cares for me. I keep no company. I have minimal needs. And now they are through with me.

Now they are through with me.

The liner notes explain it perfectly. It tells the story of a young Russian man named Dima who left his home at the age of 14. He moved to the city in hopes of becoming a fashion designer. He had no home and eventually moved into the home of an older man, who took him as his lover. Soon Dima left him and moved into the home of a wealthy older man who provided financial backing for a conglomerate of gay pornographic websites. Dima's documents were changed so that Dima's age was 18, although at this point he was maybe around 16.

He soon began starring in his lover's films as well as working as a nude model. Dima supplemented his income by working as an escort. Soon, a member of the Russian mafia had developed something of a fixation on Dima. One day, Dima left his lover and cut off communication with all his friends, and moved in with the Russian crime leader. Another escort, a friend of Dima, spotted Dima being "forcibly sodomized" by a group of 10-15 men (including the crime leader) in a private sex club. That was the last spotting of Dima.

The escort tried to investigate. He persuaded a prominent gay Russian journalist to write a story, but the journalist was threatened by the organized crime, and stopped.

One day, another crime leader, who was being tried on an unrelated murder charge, confessed that he had seen a young man matching Dima's description be pushed out of a helicopter over a remote forest in Northern Russia. Dima's ex-lover, before dying in 2007, confessed that he had sold Dima as a sex slave in 2005 and believed Dima to have committed suicide in 2006.

Take my hand and pray with me My final days in company The devil now has come for me And helicopters circling the scene

And I pray for rest Could you pray for us We know he loves you the best We know he loves you the best

The lights inside my cave I'm tired of my ‘cades

Oh these drugs they played On me, these terrible ways They don’t pay like they used to pay I used to make it day-to-day

No one cares for me I keep no company I have minimal needs And now they are through with me

Now they are through with me (x8)

I actually spoke to Bradford Cox directly about this song. Last night he had this webcam chat where you could ask him questions one-on-one via webcam. It was absolutely amazing.

My question regarded how "Helicopter" came about, and he told me that he was reading a story about some specific and tragic event that some German had to endure. He told me that the story resonated with him so much that he actually felt what this person was going through, so he wrote this song and the lyrics as a representation of how it would have been if he had experienced it.

He didn't go into details about what that tragic event was though.

I heard "I'm tired of my face." that would be an epic line.

Poor Dima, he was the result of human trafficking. He shouldn't have ran away but you never know what happened in his home. Hopefully God gave him peace finally. Sad story.

"And I pray for rest"

"No (but) he loves you the best"

i think

yeah definitely some missing lines and errors with this one. amazing song though

Such a beautiful song...

Maybe Bradford is talking about his illness (Marfan Syndrome) and how it made him turn to God, as he feels he has no human love in his life. It sounds like he's looking into the future, at death. This song is definitely from his heart. Nothing about it is fabricated, and it expends on his pain and fear. Deerhunter/Atlas Sound never disappoint me.