The Yawning Grave

The lyrics to this song make me think of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian". Seems to me this song might be about Judge Holden in particular.
In "Blood Meridian", as the Glanton Gang roams the country looking for victims, the Judge meticulously sketches and collects specimens of unfamiliar species. Toadvine, a fellow Glanton Gang member, asks why. The judge replies, in one of the most badass sentiments ever put to paper, “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” It's almost like the Judge could have said himself much of the lyrics to this song, especially the first verse: I know the rain like the clouds know the sky I speak to birds and tell them where to fly I sing the songs that you hear on the breeze I write the names of the rocks and the trees

Um sounds like God is singing

He songs on behalf of death

When I first heard this song, i immediately thought he was singing from the point of view of the Earth, this planet. Whatever being controls it all, but it didn't necessarily sound like God was speaking, to me, but nature itself.

I know the rain like the clouds know the sky I speak to birds and tell them where to fly I sing the songs that you hear on the breeze I write the names of the rocks and the trees

Both the sound of the music and the lyrics make me think of natural forces, disasters, phenomenon... birds flying away from impending disaster, the wind picking up, things like that. And he's speaking to humanity:

I tried to warn you when you were a child I told you not to get lost in the wild I sent omens and all kinds of signs I taught you melodies, poems, and rhymes

How many of us can remember being told since we were children that humans are destroying the planet? I definitely do. The issue is only growing with each passing year and, eventually, the earth will take itself back from humans. We can only live this way for so long, since so little of life nowadays is sustainable and the population is growing exponentially and uncontrollably. To me, the song illustrates how mankind has essentially dug its own grave... the ultimate "reckoning" is just beginning. Eery stuff. I love this song <3 Haunting and beautiful and powerfully sobering to hear.

Oh, you fool, there are rules, I am coming for you (You can run but you can't escape) Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins (You will open the yawning grave)

It's the Earthsea cycle in a song. Ged, chasing the darkness he unleashed on Roke. All the teachers that go unheeded. The yawning grave is the wall to the false afterlife that is destroyed in the 6th book.

Personally, ive always thought the song is sung in the perspective of death himself. He’s always watched down upon everyone, waiting to claim them when its their time. He’s sent them “omens and all kinds of signs”, warning them not to do something that might end up ending their lives too soon. He helped people avoid dying because it may not have been their time, but the person that he’s speaking of in particular seems to have found some way to get around dying, and therefore that releases some form of “darkness” that brings “evil things” and so a “reckoning begins” for all of humanity. This is just a warning to those who try to avoid death, try to break the inevitable, because bad things may happen to those who do, there are rules to follow, and life and death are apart of those rules, to follow them, or you may bring more pain and suffering to not only yourself but others. Its a comforting and poetic song to bring light to those who are scared, its to bring a sense of relief and comfort to let those who are scared know that its okay, that theres no reason to be scared, that death was only trying to help in the first place.