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A Departure Lyrics
To scratched out, for everything.
Night fell on me writing this and I ran out of paper so I crossed the name out at the top of the page. Not sure why I'm even writing this. But I guess it feels right. It sort of feels like I have to-like an exorcism.
I guess that makes me sound crazy but that's alright. Lately I feel like I might be, not that I've heard any voices or anything. Just like that everyday kind, where you forget things you shouldn't and you think too much about death.
Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Or maybe you would have known? Or had known?
Is it once knew? I don't know what tense to use.
I know I never used to feel like this. I used to never think of death or hear voices. I used to feel Like everything was perfectly in order, a normal life, but I guess then came a departure.
That I know you understand (or would've understood?). I guess things changed after that, and I'm mostly scared now.
But it's there in the stories, or whatever they are. You can see it. Anybody could if they could Look. I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it. The rest is in between lines or in the fine Print. First, the feeling of abandonment, then trying to cope. Then death and hope and the thing Itself, waiting for me. It's all there in the pages ahead of here. It's there waiting for you.
Or for me. I'm not sure.
The whole story.
Night fell on me writing this and I ran out of paper so I crossed the name out at the top of the page. Not sure why I'm even writing this. But I guess it feels right. It sort of feels like I have to-like an exorcism.
Is it once knew? I don't know what tense to use.
That I know you understand (or would've understood?). I guess things changed after that, and I'm mostly scared now.
But it's there in the stories, or whatever they are. You can see it. Anybody could if they could Look. I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it. The rest is in between lines or in the fine Print. First, the feeling of abandonment, then trying to cope. Then death and hope and the thing Itself, waiting for me. It's all there in the pages ahead of here. It's there waiting for you.
Or for me. I'm not sure.
The whole story.
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The whole album, like the previous, has a story that flows through the songs.
It's divided into four parts as the lyrics show in this song:
A Departure
"First, the feeling of abandonment": Harder Harmonies St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church Blues Edit Your Hometown
A Letter
"Then trying to cope": Safer in the Forest/Love Song for Poor Michigan The Most Beautiful Bitter Fruit
A Poem
"Then death and hope": King Park Edward Benz, 27 Times I See Everything
A Broken Jar
"And the thing itself, waiting for me": All Our Bruised Bodies and the Whole Heart Shrinks You and I in Unison
Every song beginning with "A..." provides the shift in content, and the layout of the entire album provides a sort of symmetry:
Introduction 3 songs Shift 2 songs Shift 3 songs Shift 2 songs
There are various references to "Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair" throughout the album, mostly towards the end:
Safer in the Forest/Love Song for Poor Michigan: "I will hold these old streets sweetly in my head like her." (Specifically Andria: "So dear, no matter how we part, I hold you sweetly in my head.")
All Our Bruised Bodies and the Whole Heart Shrinks: "Did you find your lover laying in your bedroom with another and then did you let it hover over you and everything else well after the fact?" (References the entire album.)
You and I in Unison: "When I sing, don't I sing your name right at the same time that I sing my own?" "I will sing sweetly..." "I'll sing your name in every line, just like I did throughout this, just like I've always done." "Until I die, I will sing our names in unison." (All referencing lines from Andria.)
I feel like this song is sort of the summary of the albums themes. Because alot of the songs on the album are about stories of peoples suffering and how they come to terms with it. The line 'But it's there in the stories, or whatever they are. You can see it. Anybody could if they could Look. I wrote some notes in the margins explaining it. The rest is in between lines or in the fine Print. First, the feeling of abandonment, then trying to cope. Then death and hope and the thing Itself, waiting for me.' I guess one way to look at it is that this song is kind of like the prequel to the series of stories told in the whole album, and in a sense he(Jordan Dreyer, singer and writer of the lyrics) is 'writing a letter' as described by the following lines 'Night fell on me writing this and I ran out of paper so I crossed the name out at the top of the page. Not sure why I'm even writing this.' As far as the subject of these lyrics, it could be that they are merely reflections of Jordan that he chooses to write out instead of having them bottled up in his mind. Perhaps his own way of thinking out aloud, like talking to himself.
These lyrics have some literary references, which makes it really interesting (to me at least). I've come across a few things in my reading, and I wonder if Dreyer intentionally put them there as a nod to literary influences.
'Then came a departure' is a line from a John Berryman poem: Dream Song 1. In the poem I think it's to do with it's protagonist's (Henry's) father's death. The 'departure' is a change into a more melancholic perception of the world, much like like the lyrics of Wildlife.
'The thing itself' is an idea coined by the philosopher Kant, which is basically thinking of something in isolation, without your relation to it; a reference to something existing independently without our understanding of it. In reference to the meaning of this song, I feel Dreyer is trying to say that there's something ahead of him that he doesn't quite understand - that it is apart from him, much like death is.
wow. i love this. the content is a lot different than most their other songs (unexpected, but equally [or maybe even more] amazing). instead of lost love, it's a lost self. unfortunately, very relatable for me :/
Everything about this song hits me with a closed fist. Probably one of the best things La Dispute has ever written. This album as a whole was just breathtaking.
i love........... this album. SO much.
Brilliant
The narrator's introspection is so haunting. I can't help but be reduced to tears as I read the lyrics of the "A..." songs, realising that they're a torturous reflection of the person I've become and life I've departed into. I hope that I'll find some sort of deliverance and closure, because I don't see that much of it at the end of this album.