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Archipelago Lyrics
peace. the ward he offers me a pack of cigarettes. they aren’t
his, and yet i feel it coming on -a sense of welling grief. and
though they ‘re serving samovar, somehow i’d rather be up in
an airplane above the archipelago. i stuttered in my armour
in an airplane above the archipelago. i could see where you
grew up, and the murderer in me. please. the blanket and the
sheets, the leaves the gardner rakes are articles of faith. the
company believes i’m running derelict around these foreign
streets. the colonel knows i want to crack his head for
taking me up in an airplane above the archipelago. i stuttered
in my armour in an airplane above the archipelago. now i see
where you grew up, and the murderer in me. they said there
was an ice age forty thousand years ago. incidents of road
rage warring on the streets below.
his, and yet i feel it coming on -a sense of welling grief. and
though they ‘re serving samovar, somehow i’d rather be up in
an airplane above the archipelago. i stuttered in my armour
in an airplane above the archipelago. i could see where you
grew up, and the murderer in me. please. the blanket and the
sheets, the leaves the gardner rakes are articles of faith. the
company believes i’m running derelict around these foreign
streets. the colonel knows i want to crack his head for
taking me up in an airplane above the archipelago. i stuttered
in my armour in an airplane above the archipelago. now i see
where you grew up, and the murderer in me. they said there
was an ice age forty thousand years ago. incidents of road
rage warring on the streets below.
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I think this song evokes the feelings of disillusionment and futility of Heller's Catch-22.
Literally, I think the song is from the point of a view of a Air Force bomber who was injured during one of the many air raids in WW2, and is now confined to a bed in a hospital, ruminating about the transience of life.
"I feel it coming on a sense of welling grief, and though they're serving samovar I think I'd rather be up in an airplane"
He's out of the action and recuperating, but after his experiences he is no longer able to enjoy civilian life, he's seen how fragile it is. Perhaps he has PTSD.
"The leaves the gardener rakes are articles of faith" suggests that people going about their normal chores are unaware or unwilling to believe how meaningless they are in the face of the destructive forces of war.
"I see where you grew up and the murderer in me"
He simultaneously connects with his targets and with his remorse at his role in the war.
@bluremi I was totally thinking the same thing about it being the point of view of a pilot in a war.
@bluremi I was totally thinking the same thing about it being the point of view of a pilot in a war.
"They say there was an ice age... Incidents of road rage" I see this as a newfound perspective on life (gained from his experiences in the war, as you said) - how petty and fickle our daily squabbles are in the face of all of history.
"They say there was an ice age... Incidents of road rage" I see this as a newfound perspective on life (gained from his experiences in the war, as you said) - how petty and fickle our daily squabbles are in the face of all of history.
I also like how the two verses lead into the chorus with opposite feelings - at first he says he'd rather be in an airplane, then expressed anger at ever being...
I also like how the two verses lead into the chorus with opposite feelings - at first he says he'd rather be in an airplane, then expressed anger at ever being put up in an airplane in the first place. I think he did enjoy flying, and even found it to be perhaps the most freeing experience he's had, being up and away from the rest of the world, and yet being up there is also what led to his injuries and worse, his hand in the deaths of others. I'm not sure if that fully qualified as a catch-22, but it would be apropos.
Also, wow, this song came out over 4 years ago? I am late to the party.
"Now I see were you grew up, and the murderer in me": He knows his lover was a good person before him, he's a bad influence. He can now see were she comes from, and what he has done to his/her personality; he has transformed the other person in a bad way.
It's over and he's relieved, but it wasn't his decision. In an airplane he can see things from a wider perspective, he can see were it went wrong, but he'd rather stay even if he's harming him/her.
The ice age is the time before he met his lover. He/she was cold and flavorless. The incidents of road rage are all the transformation, the traces of his influences over them.
I just love that phrase "Now I see where you grew up, and the murderer in me" when I think about it this way. Being a bad influence, stealing an (apparently) innocent mind, ruining everything and not being able to return that innocence, but not regreting it.