The Proverbial Bellow

While the lyrics of this song are pretty cryptic, I'm pretty sure the song is about vacuum tubes used in audio amplifier circuits. Vacuum tubes are the electronic "switches" that were commonly used to build amplifiers, until they got phased out by the cheaper and more reliable transistor.

Here's the background on how vacuum tubes work: In a vacuum tube, electrons are emitted from a hot cathode via thermionic emission, and into a vacuum. Thermionic emission is a phenomenon where you heat a metal so hot that electrons begin to leave the metal and eject into the space around it. With a vacuum tube, there is a metal coil in the center (the cathode) that is heated red-hot until electrons begin ejecting from the coil and into the vacuum. Once the electron is free in the vacuum, there are two different plates in the tube that influence the electron: the grid, and the collector. A positive voltage is applied on the collector which makes the electron accelerate towards it (opposites attract, and electrons are negative) and once an electron slams into the collector, it then enters the rest of the circuit, goes through your speaker, then it comes back to the hot cathode to be re-emitted.

The grid is very important - it is a metal screen through which the electrons must pass in order to reach the collector. We can apply a voltage to the grid which can either inhibit electrons from reaching the collector (which would reduce the current flow through our speaker), or we can enhance the rate of electron flow (thus increasing the current flow through the speaker). Therefore, by applying a tiny signal to the grid, we can make huge changes in the current flow between the cathode and the collector! Hence the signal is amplified.

The song is about an individual electron racing through the vacuum. "Electricity screams through the fingers below" - the fingers are the metal screen of the grid, which electrons are flying through.

"Tiny electric movements"... "A god-like floating sensation"... all which could be used to describe an electron being accelerated to the collector.

"The red glow creates shadows… mountains". The red glow is the black-body radiation being emitted from the cathode.

"Yellow eyes stare below me"... the electron is racing away from the cathode, but at a slower velocity than light - hence the electron will be able to "see" the light shining upon it.

"I’m now elevated"... The electron, which was once in a stable energy level in the cathode metal, has been given a huge amount of energy in order to leave metal via thermionic emission. It has thus been elevated, both in energy and physically in distance, from the metal.

"Beautiful eruption… we’ve made our creation Sunshine beams on their faces… as they melt into one" - I believe this refers to the electrons slamming into the collector, where they rapidly decelerate and re-enter the circuit via the wire. The "sunshine" is beaming upon the faces of the metal atoms of the collector. This could also be taken to mean the faces of the crystalline structure of the metal.

Meanwhile, "THE SLIGHT HUM OF THE GRIIIIIDDDDD" is merely the small signal of the telephone/audio source being imposed on the grid, which controls the current flow through the circuit. Of course it is humming - it is being fed with music, and hence it hums at audio frequencies.

Now, the last line, "Please pick up the phone… it’s been ringing for years now I’m so alone here", is interesting.... if the electrons were travelling at relativistic velocities, then they would surely experience time dilation. However, electrons in a vacuum tube only travel at about 10^6 meters/second, which is about 1/100 of the speed of light. At these speeds, relativistic physics don't really play a role in the motion of the electron. However, it would make perfect sense that electrons feel "so alone here", as they are negatively charged, and hence try to distance themselves from other electrons as much as possible. Imagine trying to interact with someone who was just like you, but the Coulombic repulsion keeps pushing you apart!

Ultimately, this song is rather pantheistic in nature, as it ascribes sensation and perception to something as small and fundamental as an electron. It suggests that even the mere transfer of energy can be considered a form of consciousness. I wonder how the electrons in the wires of my house must feel - are they in pain? Or perhaps ecstasy?