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The Rise Lyrics
All the riders on the rise
and circlers from every side.
All the riders on the rise
and circlers from every side.
Eyes up!
Light floods around
in a yellow shadow after night comes down
in a groundward fall,
in a dull dumb swipe.
And all's white.
Fire painting on the pines,
and hawks above the timber-line,
and water weeping from the ice.
Heat is lost. Winter rocks into a lonely boxwood grove.
And quiet snowfall smothers all of the lawns
where the ladies coughed and cried,
"I don't want to be there when it's time!"
The dying stag is on his side.
The hunters are hiding, up on high.
The wind is beating through the briars.
Waves on the graves of the saints.
Dull grey as the sea pushes land away.
Dull ache when you wake.
Grey smoke shows the way you walk
down by when it's time.
I don't want to be there
when it's time to go
down, or I don't want to go
down there alone.
Down down down down
down down down down
down down
down down
down down
down down
down
down
ooooh.
and circlers from every side.
All the riders on the rise
and circlers from every side.
Light floods around
in a yellow shadow after night comes down
in a groundward fall,
in a dull dumb swipe.
And all's white.
Fire painting on the pines,
and hawks above the timber-line,
and water weeping from the ice.
And quiet snowfall smothers all of the lawns
where the ladies coughed and cried,
"I don't want to be there when it's time!"
The hunters are hiding, up on high.
The wind is beating through the briars.
Waves on the graves of the saints.
Dull grey as the sea pushes land away.
Dull ache when you wake.
Grey smoke shows the way you walk
down by when it's time.
I don't want to be there
when it's time to go
down, or I don't want to go
down there alone.
Down down down down
down down down down
down down
down down
down down
down down
down
down
ooooh.
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No comments! I'm so sad :( I freakin' love this one. So different from Okkervil River's other closers. That constant sense of threat that pervades the album finally unravels here in a gorgeous confrontation with mortality and the raw fear of death. It's just beautifully done. Stronger than the fear of the absence of life or the self is the fear of facing that moment, as we'll all have to, entirely alone. When each of us makes that leap, no one, no matter how much we love them, will be making it with us. I think there's an environmentalist theme to this too - glaciers melting, erratic weather patterns, the sea brimming over and flooding the land. No one wants to be there when it's time for the climate catastrophe to wipe us all out, but there's the sense that it's too late to stop that from happening, and we'll be lucky to die before it does. Depressing, haunting, absolutely not optimistic, and beautiful.