A Machine Spiritual (In the People's Key)

Cyberghost - you are all over the place and reading a little to deeply into individual lines, imo, but I think you are in the ballpark regarding 'emptiness/nothingness' as a theme here.

The song does refer to the inherent destructive nature of man, be it inward (self-destructive: drowning yourself in water, emotional imprisonment) or outward (mass destruction: like Hitler and those tyrants who've followed and preceded him). Both regard a goal or motivation of nothingness.

The first verse refers to a piano (black machine) or rather the pianist at the piano, playing a tune without feeling, but I think the song (and really the album) is about the literal earth and all living things as a collective machine (which, scientifically, it really is) and the spirit (or 'voice') that inhabits it, even when we try to shut it out.

If you consider that voice as the People's Key - something which we all hear, most noticeably through music - it really ties everything together.

How many fans of Conor (and countless other musicians) find some sort of connection with a song even when the words don't make sense? There is some subconscious connection/understanding we all share in all things good and evil. That would be the spirit in the machine that we know as life on earth.

The song brings to mind the Firstborn, in Arthur C Clark's Space Odyssey books.

The "code" is DNA, compared to binary code. Maybe realistic androids?

Paranoid androids???

well eva braun was hitlers wife and she killed herself by drinking cyanide after only like 2 days of marriage, i don't think they had a child... that would be widely known. maybe in this song he's trying to say that even if you have evil parents or lovers, the child that comes won't necessarily have the same demeanor? hmm.

The People’s Key ringing through arena seats The black machine played it all from memory A fever dream, well, I’ll come back eventually To wade into the water, another and another we go

Form some kind of code The bodies float And form some kind of code The bodies float Someone is out to know

Papa Hobo don’t hide your eyes Mother Mountain don’t kill your unborn child His day is coming His day is coming

A question burns beneath the centuries of dirt That voice you’ve heard, well, every head is a different world Where mine is concerned, I boarded up the windows A catatonic plateau, a backwards, black-faced minstrel show

So just let me go The prisoner moans Oh just let me go The prisoner moans No one has to know

Eva Braun went to dye her hair Little Hitler sat in his giant’s chair And dreamed of nowhere And dreamed and dreamed and dreamed

The People’s Key ringing filling everything The theme repeats, thinner than the galaxy Impart to me your wisdom and eventually I’ll float into the ether, another from another we grow

Form some kind of code Of flesh and bone We form some kind of code Of flesh and bone No, you are not alone

History bows and it steps aside In the jungle there are columns of purple light

We are starting over We are starting We are starting

I think this song fits in with the other sci fi themes on the album. In this song i think he's looking toward a future, in with our souls, or consciousness are embodied in computers.

In the song " i got a reason #2 ", he alludes to a similar idea, that the satallites are the " last noah's ark ", containing what's left of a dead earth.

I also think the " columns of purple light " in the jungle, might be this noahs ark concept again, where spaceships are collecting species from the jungle, to preserve for the future.

Conor sings " I'll come back eventually ", suggesting that biological life will resurface again and again.

i know the people's key is c. the song's in the key of c

"History bows and it steps aside In the jungle there's columns of purple light We're starting over We're starting over"

Makes me think of Lost.

There are a few key lines I'd like to point out as they relate to my interpretation above...

"Form some kind of code of flesh and bone"

Consider how our interactions can be expressed like a computer software code interacting with the hardware (the earth). A computer chip is a series of on/off switches (good/evil? light/dark?) by which the software and the hardware speak.

"History bows and it steps aside" "another from another we grow"

In previous songs, Conor speaks of the innate instinct most animals have to let themselves die so that others may live and at the time he pondered the purpose. I think he expands on that idea with this song - that the cycle of birth to death and the progress made between each is part of that spiritual machine.

"The theme repeats, thinner than the galaxy"

This is particularly important, because while it initially appears as a contradiction or contrast, if you listen to songs like "Singularity" or are familiar with the concept (as well as quantum theory), the galaxy can be viewed as something very 'thin'.

"Papa Hobo don’t hide your eyes Mother Mountain don’t kill your unborn child"

I'm not sure about 'Papa Hobo', but I'm fairly certain that "Mother Mountain" refers to the theory that life originally began from volcanic vents during the early stages of earth's existence.

If I'm correct, he's basically saying that the 'unborn child' is mankind and that our day is coming when we will be enlightened or 'born' and then, having finally heard that 'voice', fully aware of the depth of our existence.

These are some huge concepts he's working with, and I marvel at his ability to write about them in simple human terms, but that's always been Conor's specialty. You look at his body of work and there's a whole library of philosophies within, but this one really is a masterpiece.

i had to pause this song halfway through to think about these lyrics: "mother mountain, don't kill your unborn child his day is coming, his day is coming" it seems pretty openly anti-choice to me.

The mysteriousness of abiogenesis?