I. ...And the Earth Wept

I tuck you in ever so gently
Still you cried and turned from me
You stepped on my heart
I forgave just like mothers do
From under your shoes I still carried you

Soon my body will burn into ashes and dust
And rain will turn all that glitters to rust
One last pill for the pain
Sit down let me explain...

Why my bruises stay
My child I know you never meant to...
These scars just won't fade away
and I'm sure you never knew

I give up, I give in
Help December let a new year begin
Take what's left
And move on
Fly away
Be gone...

II. Poisoned Land

[Instrumental]

III. Leaving Home

The morrow winds blow and herald a time
when man will be damned for all his crime
We all were too bold, now we all can see
how the lifegiver's bleeding to death before me

I am packing my bags, I', waiting in line
This tragedy forces us away from this land
As I board this creature of steel,
I kiss her good bye, give her time to heal

IV. Take-Off

Loud sirens wail to send a
goldonder towards the light
Leaving the ground we bathe in starlight,
while heading for oceans of night

Safe in Aniara's warm and tender care we ride
Eight thousand hearts that fled the fires
for a life at a distant home

V. A Turn for the Worse

A swerve to clear the Hondo stone
(Now we proclaim it known)
took us off course came too wide of Mars to
turn back home
There's no turning back, guiding units broke
and cracked
We will never win this game

From pledges and bonds, our system of suns
locked down its vaulted gateway
In thousands of years ram through the final frontier
The Lyre greets us there

Our ship at drift into the void
Through nothingness deployed
With an empty stare become aware
-our lives destroyed
Fears are hard to hide, praying as denial subsides
We can never win this game

From pledges and bonds, our system of suns
locked down its vaulted gateway
In thousands of years ram through the final frontier
A moth to a flame

VI. A New Balance

Glass-like is the stare encircling us
The systems of stars hang frozen still
...a gaze through the window
Six years down the line we still feign dawn and sunset
but space no light will spawn
...eternally darker

Now setting sails,
but never know the worlds she's treading
where the life belongs
Mima lead the way;

Shine your light, be the beacon of hope at night,
be our guide, I need what you're doing to me
Shine your light, blind us when reality bites
We so need the magic she does

I asked me a question, -no reply
I dreamt me a life and live a lie
...dream me a nightmare
I traveled the stars but passed them by,
for trapped on Aniara here was
...always been leaving

We sit and stare,
at all the marvels that she brings us
Lights the life in you
Mima lead the way;

Shin your light, be the beacon of hope at night
Perfect grace in the barren house of space
Shine your light, blind us when reality bites
Mima, save us from seeing ourselves

VII.Death of the Goddesses

Inside the Mima's eyes, we lived our lives
Then like an arrow through this jest
destiny sent us a greeting from home, let us see:

-We have no home anymore
While Mima showed the final war
her circuits bled and fried as our mother died
She's darkened by our sin,
we begin to realize it

When I saw home so blue, be torn in two
all by the hands of her own child
Humanity, -the festering cancer that
dug her own grave

We have no home anymore
While Mima showed the final war
her circuits bled and fried, -seems she too will die
-Our haven's dying

I couldn't stop them if I tried
As they all rushed to see her die
Chaos, panic, people fight
I can't see, I will not, I won't
Our way of life is overthrown
Is there really no way? Let us turn back time.

VIII. The Age of Confusion: Despair

In the deafening silence people mourn,
we've cried us a river
Who knows where all laughter be?
On whom we place the blame?
Her demise was theirs!
Stained by their disease her screen recedes
Our real eyes realized
they beguile us all with their minds

IX. The Age of Confusion: Lust

Our lusting flesh and piety,
all coexist in the mist
Put aside your chastity
unveiling skin, magical sin

Controls the pile of heaving flesh,
a twisted queen;
"sleep with me and work the loins
The mind will stray, yield to life"

X. The Age of Confusion: Reason

And as the orgies all fade
and lust no longer attracts
then the brain will subdue the flesh,
put the focus on facts

Human brain was a shameful part,
low names were high for loins and for breast
Us Hades may harvest,
fully at its behest

XI. The Aftermath

I still cry and I still miss her
I was just a little boy
running through the endless garden of our home

Away -some say never, ever
we'll leave this god forsake place
and ten thousand shivers
remain as we part

We're holding on, within our cradle of confusion
We paint no rainbows in the dark
No one will ever see us fade away
O for so long, I was the wielder of illusions
Our goddess gave in when she saw
that we had killed the earth and burst to flames

Every smile on every face
fell and crashed onto the floor
All alone in the world crying desperately

Away -some say never, ever we'll leave this god forsaken place
and ten thousand shivers
remain as we part

We're holding on, within our cradle of confusion
We paint no rainbows in the dark
No one will ever see us fade away
Oh for so long, I was the wielder of illusions
but there's no hiding what we are
We are the plague of all,
-for humanity there is no cure

God and Satan hand in hand
through this badland
took a flight uphill and down from man,
a king with with ashen crown

XII. Dining on Ashes

What we reap is what we sow
Naked our truth smugly glows
We leave all games behind, because;
It took twenty years to come and go
Then only did we all know
and see how wrinkled and jaded we had grown

Looking out the window
but there's nothing new
Only darkness stares at you
I would die to see the rain below the rainbow,
just like others do

We crown the skies with our tiara;
-the life and fate of Aniara
We write an endless symphony
Now thousands were weeping
and hundreds cried in dismay;
-Twenty years today!
Repenting sinners pray

Easy come and easy go,
We could have had it all you know
Man's final day is here
Search for silver dig for gold
His desires now untold

Looking out the window,
all that he can see;
his own reflection's final plea;
"I would die to see the rain below the rainbow,
just like others do"

We crown the skies with our tiara;
-the life and fate of Aniara
We write an endless symphony
Now thousands were weeping
and hundreds cried in dismay;
-Twenty years today!
Repenting sinners will wither and fade

XIII. The Curtain Falls

Gladness fleeting, by whims and luck
-That is the way of life
Looking, searching our hearts
to find the "why" of it all
Finding no way to our home

See, in silence we faded. Our great escape;
-twenty four years inside
Looking, searching our ship
for life but just dust
falls on the graves of all

The halls of our ship now are void of all but death
Our lives have passed,
our hearts were broken by the endless dark
Our new paradise,
the one to replace the one we burned so bad
The god we hoped for left profaned,
all wounded and forlorn on the home we scarred

Now here I stand, my dear,
one heart still beats...
I bid you farewell,
the curtain will now descend
Somewhere in time we were living
-remember us then!


Lyrics submitted by Termedea, edited by sokorny

The Great Escape song meanings
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  • +1
    Song Meaning

    Based on my reading notes of Harry Martinson's Aniara. Given how much detail there is in the original poem, Seventh Wonder would really have needed at least a whole album to cover the entire plot, with all its secondary characters and other events that aren't mentioned here.

    I: …And the Earth Wept

    After years of nuclear warfare and ecological devastation, the Earth speaks in a motherly voice, forgiving humanity for its sins and urging it to move on to a better home.

    III: Leaving Home

    The narrator, known as Mimarobe in the poem, boards the colony ship Aniara to tend an AI called Mima. Many people are leaving Earth for other colonies throughout the solar system in order to give the planet time to heal.

    IV: Take-Off

    Aniara lifts off from Earth and begins its journey to Mars with 8000 refugees.

    V: A Turn for the Worse

    Aniara swerves to avoid the previously undiscovered Hondo asteroid, taking it so far off course that it can’t turn back toward Mars. It’s now pointed toward the constellation Lyra, which it will reach at subluminal speeds after thousands of years and the deaths of all its passengers.

    VI: A New Balance

    Six years after launch, the passengers “still feign dawn” in celebrations of Midsummer’s Eve in an effort to maintain a part of their old lives. Mima becomes their only guiding light and is worshipped as a god.

    VII: Death of the Goddesses

    Mima receives news from Earth that the refugees’ home city of Dorisburg has been destroyed and kills herself in grief. Frightened, the passengers rush to the Mimadrome and begin to panic.

    VIII: The Age of Confusion: Despair

    The passengers mourn for Mima, seeking for someone to blame but not realizing that they can only blame themselves.

    IX: The Age of Confusion: Lust

    Fertility cults arise throughout the ship as the passengers turn away from science and logic to carnal pleasures, believing that scientists are the cause of all their present griefs. In the poem, Mimarobe and others are imprisoned by a dictator named Chefone but is later released in a futile attempt to repair Mima. As mentioned in the next part, the passengers’ fixation on sexuality over reason caused their language to shift toward demonizing intellect while elevating words for sexual organs over anything else.

    X: The Age of Confusion: Reason

    The power of the fertility cults subsides and reason returns.

    XI: The Aftermath

    Mimarobe mourns for his home and Mima, who -- along with both God and Satan -- abandoned humanity to its fate.

    XII: Dining on Ashes

    Twenty years after launch, the passengers have finally begun to see the truth about themselves and their helpless situation.

    XIII: The Curtain Falls

    Mimarobe remains alive while the last of the refugees die.

    theorykidon June 28, 2016   Link

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