I'll second that, this song is amazing live, it loses something on the album. Still fantastic lyrically though, and easily my fave on the album.
As I see it, it's about a person who has been "living in hell" his whole life, unnoticed and tortured and eventually looking for the easy way out... "the banished citadel" through suicide. And even then nobody notices his despair... "your soul denied these warnings, took no notice, disbelieving".
And all this person wants is for someone to notice they exist, hence the "I'm still breathing, my heart's still beating..." repeat. At the very end of the song Tim starts chanting "Incoming, incoming..." and I think this is to symbolize that the guy has done it, killed himself, and is "incoming" to heaven or hell or whatever afterlife you choose to believe in.
Bits of it seem to be a bit religious, I imagine "When are you coming home? You've been away too long, too far you've wandered" to be God speaking to him, saying it's okay to give up, to come back to him.
And then you have the one odd line, the "I am left to wonder why, forever after". That maybe everybody has a person who will miss them and wonder, that no man is an island, no matter what they think.
I'll second that, this song is amazing live, it loses something on the album. Still fantastic lyrically though, and easily my fave on the album.
As I see it, it's about a person who has been "living in hell" his whole life, unnoticed and tortured and eventually looking for the easy way out... "the banished citadel" through suicide. And even then nobody notices his despair... "your soul denied these warnings, took no notice, disbelieving".
And all this person wants is for someone to notice they exist, hence the "I'm still breathing, my heart's still beating..." repeat. At the very end of the song Tim starts chanting "Incoming, incoming..." and I think this is to symbolize that the guy has done it, killed himself, and is "incoming" to heaven or hell or whatever afterlife you choose to believe in.
Bits of it seem to be a bit religious, I imagine "When are you coming home? You've been away too long, too far you've wandered" to be God speaking to him, saying it's okay to give up, to come back to him.
And then you have the one odd line, the "I am left to wonder why, forever after". That maybe everybody has a person who will miss them and wonder, that no man is an island, no matter what they think.
It's a beautiful, tragic song. I adore it.