"The Leper Affinity" as written by and Mikael Lars Akerfeldt....
We entered Winter once again
Naked, freezing from my breath
â??Neath the lid, all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now and onwards
Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears
I am beyond death
Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendor
Fever mirrored ghosts
Night-time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through days
In the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at its peak
Love me to my death
Lost are the days of Spring
You sighed and let me in
Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin
Your gaze, covered with virgin snow
Rigid featuresâ?¦.
It's the shallow deeds who's to blame
Deafening shrieks pierced the night
A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie
It was worth it for the wait alone
Naked, freezing from my breath
â??Neath the lid, all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now and onwards
Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears
I am beyond death
Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendor
Fever mirrored ghosts
Night-time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through days
In the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at its peak
Love me to my death
Lost are the days of Spring
You sighed and let me in
Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin
Your gaze, covered with virgin snow
Rigid featuresâ?¦.
It's the shallow deeds who's to blame
Deafening shrieks pierced the night
A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie
It was worth it for the wait alone
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"We entered Winter once again"
Keep in mind that's the first lyrics of the album, it means we forgot the happy ending of still life : this is gonna be raw and cold, like winter.
"Naked, freezing from my breath"
Have you ever felt the breath of someone in your neck ?
"Neath the lid all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now"
He's above, she can't move
"Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears"
This is were insanity begins, feeling all powerful makes him bursting in madness
"I am beyond death"
A lot of murderers, rapists etc... felt the same when they commited their crimes, feeling like god because you play with the life of someone
"Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendour
Fever mirrored ghosts"
She lost strength and resigned to fight, she let him do the dirty job, he fucks her
"Night time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through days
In the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at it's peak
Love me to my death"
He kills her, obvious enough : night means death, "cross the line" "Insanity at it's peak"
"Lost are days of Spring
You sighted and let me in
Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin"
I can pretty much see the scene clearly. His madness stoped, he stand amazed, got scared. Then he talk to her, yell, and tell her it's her fault. MAAAAN i can almost see his eyes, in a mix of surprize, fear and anger.
"Your gaze covered with virgin snow
Rigid features
It's the shallow deeds who is to blame
Deafening shrieks pierced the night
A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie"
He now looks at the body, starting to get covered by fresh snow, the beauty of the white constrast with the horror of the murder. He feels like in a dream, unreal.
"It was worth it for the wait alone"
Like a cry against sociaty that made him an outcast.
This song is perfect and very vivid
For me it seems obvious that actually the woman got pregnant!
"You sighted and let me in
Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin"
Keep the beast inside, shackled (tied, bonded to) within my hide (do you realize what is this that he's calling his 'hide'?)
Grew together with your skin and paced the trails of sin. - This actually confirms the following idea: the woman is now pregnant, and since it was a relationship of no love, just abuse, this fetus is doomed to follow the sinful path. In the end it becomes clear this idea.
"Deafening shrieks pierced the night" is the time when the baby is being born.
From now on, the song is focused on the baby, who 'paced the trails of sin':
"A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie
It was worth it for the wait alone"
This is the time when he's born, moving into the dim lights... and since he comes into this terrible environment, he says it was worth it for the wait alone.
Afterwards the song repeats itself for the only time, just to make this idea even more clear. Now, the newborn is the new sinner.
I think some of your interpretations are good, but on others you have missed the ball park completely.
This, to me, is nature or the earth itself speaking. The "breath" of the land is the wind, freezing the ground and all below it. The earth now avails, or uses, the body to its own advantage. The soil itself is nurtured by the corpse, and the decomposition causes the body to return to nature - dust to dust, you know? These lines seem to fit that: "Grew together with your skin, and paced the trails of sin. Your gaze covered with virgin snow; rigid features."
All that suggests somebody dead and buried under the cold winter earth. Yeah, I can see it being a metaphor for human failings - it could even be an analogy for a controlling or smothering relationship, in a sick sort of way. But in a literal sense, I believe it's about death and the eternity of burial.
"Lost are days of Spring
You sighted and let me in"
Could be a kind of mental disorder speaking to its victim?
"Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin"
Looks like someone who hates himself for whatever sin he has (or thinks he has) done and harms himself as a punishment, no?
Well, my two cents!
"Neath the lid all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now"
Evidently the victim of leprosy has died and been buried.
"Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears"
The disease is basically talking about how it now owns the victim's body, and is looking over it and saying (Kind of ironically) what a tragic sight this person is.
"Sleep inside through days
In the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at it's peak"
This is probably a different victim. These certainly sound like symptoms of fever or sickness; perhaps the disease is claiming another victim?
"Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate"
The change from Mikael's growls to clean vocals suggest that maybe this is changing to the point of view of the dying victim. He knows that he is dying, and that nothing can be done to save him now ("Screaming out too late"). He also wants the disease to stay with him and not claim any more innocent people - "Keep the beast inside" and "Shackled within my hide" (ie Kept inside his body).
"Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin"
I have a feeling this might be the second victim, now dying of leprosy, speaking to the first victim, who may have been a loved one, and was also who he caught the disease from. "Paced the trails of sin" suggests that maybe the first victim was careless, which led up to them catching the disease. That would certainly give the song the "lost love" undertones that many Opeth songs have.
"Your gaze covered with virgin snow
Rigid features"
This is back to the disease, looking over the second victim this time. The "virgin snow" may refer to the frozen gaze of the dead person.
"Deafening shrieks pierced the night"
The second victim's body has been discovered.
"A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie"
This is the second victim passing on into the afterlife.
"It was worth it for the wait alone"
I have a feeling that this can apply if it were spoken by both the disease and the victim. From the disease's point of view, it would mean that the disease has enjoyed waiting to claim the victim. From the victim's point of view, it would have been worth dying, because of the wait for death - in other words, life - or possibly the second victim's wait, after the first victim had died, to be with them again in the afterlife.
Well, that's my input. The whole "rapist" thing sounds highly unlikely, and I personally think that this interpretation that the speaker is the disease is far more likely. ;)
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears
I am beyond death"
That doesn't mean that he's some girl, it can also mean that he's seeing himself in a mirror or maybe having a split personality.
We entered Winter once again
Naked, freezing from my breath
Neath the lid all limbs tucked away
This coffin is your abode from now---Old Folklore of them sleeping in Coffins
and onwards
"Your body is mine to avail
Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed
Spurring me with those tears"--The attack of a woman
I am beyond death--Vampires are immortal
Midst a dreaming affinity
Saving strength now, faint whispers
Come erotic communion in its splendour
Fever mirrored ghosts
Night time consolation, cross the line
Draw murder into art
Sleep inside through days---vampires cant come out durning the day
In the wake of this relief
Shivering, longing for more
Insanity at it's peak
Love me to my death
Lost are days of Spring
You sighted and let me in --- you have to invite vampires in to your house
Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate
Grew together with your skin
And paced the trails of sin
Your gaze covered with virgin snow
Rigid features
It's the shallow deeds who is to blame
Deafening shrieks pierced the night
A step from oblivion
Moving into the dim lights
Hiding within a reverie
It was worth it for the wait alone
"Spurring me with those tears"
Has anyone ever considered that the seasons described (winter and spring) refer to chronology surrounding the event of the song, rather than literal seasons?
The song definately has sexual connotations to me, being perhaps about a rape and murder or necrophilia, but I also thought that the first person character repents or at least realises what he is doing is wrong,
"Such a tragic sight you are
Slave under my creed" and
"Keep the beast inside
Shackled within my hide
Screaming out too late
Losing to my hate" suggests maybe the character realises what he is doing is wrong, or maybe doesn't want to do it but is overtaken by his impulses? Just ideas people.
Feel free to drop me a PM, I love to talk about music
Fantastic song, though I prefer Still Life as an album =D