I’ve decided to do in-depth analysis’ of all of Coheed and Cambria’s studio tracks in chronological order so that myself and others might have a better idea of the story line of the universe and how the songs and the comics connect to each other.
I'm going to give a line-by-line (omitting repeated lines) of my interpretation of each song and explain how it corresponds to the comics.
"Hearshot Kid Disaster"
This song had me stumped for quite a long time. There are so many theories and personal interpretations on the internet that it’s hard to find any that actually match up into the canon of the story now that the comics have come out. I am firm in my belief that this song is about Wilhelm Ryan in House Atlantic, musing to himself and rhetorically speaking to God just after releasing the Onstantine Priests from their chambers, which explains the screams in the beginning. The opening of the song takes place just after this, as he is walking back to his control room and calls for General Mayo Deftinwolf to go capture Coheed and Cambria from their home. In the comic, this takes place at the same time as the events of “Time Consumer” and overlaps “Devil in Jersey City” and “Everything Evil” (when Mayo arrives at the Kilgannon home).
The song begins with Ryan talking to the captive Priests and as the music crashes he releases restraints and sedatives on the Priests and the scream signifies them waking up and breaking out of their chambers. The actual lyrics begin as Ryan is walking to his control room to call for General Mayo as the Priests scream in the background.
”Still searching for your call today,” - (Ryan feels that God has abandoned the Keywork, and more importantly the Mages, and that Ryan is still waiting to hear some sort of sign or word from God in order to confirm that God is still there and still listening.’)
”Sit down, and Structure; will you be the engineer?” - (Ryan tells God to sit down and build something again [to structure, or compose, again], to give some sort of evidence that he is still there. Ryan then asks God if he’ll be the engineer he claims to be by stepping in and stopping Ryan in order to preserve his creation. Ryan feels that if God truly has abandoned him and the Fence, then it is his righteous duty to defy God’s will by altering his creation by breaking the Keywork and in doing so prove that God has indeed gone missing.)
”Still tired and dreaming out against and overboard” - (Ryan muses that God, being so worn out from building the Keywork, has fallen asleep. Ryan believes that God, while suffering a nightmare [dreaming out against] and tossing and turning in his sleep to try and wake up, has metaphorically fallen ‘overboard’ and died. Throughout the album, Heaven and Heaven’s Fence are compared to a boat or a ship, so the image of someone falling overboard and dying fits well into the language of the many metaphors used by Sanchez.)
”When pain kills you'll hate me and wait for ” - (Ryan is now talking to Man and Prise as a whole, telling them that he knows that everyone will hate him for doing what he, in his insane delusions, believes is his duty in making God pay for the pain Ryan has suffered. In his quest for vengeance against God, Ryan has killed countless people and initiated the total genocide of the uncatalogued races in order to fuel the Monstar and destroy Sector 12 and Mariah Antillarea. In their fear, the people of Heaven’s Fence will pray and look to God for help. They will wait for…what? Since Ryan believes God is dead and gone, he asks ‘what will you wait for?)
”Or then call me crazy and pretend I left us discontent and afraid.” - (Ryan also knows that if they do not pray to God, then they will turn against Ryan and call him a madman and blame him for all the suffering and fear that they feel. Ryan uses the word ‘pretend’ because he doesn’t see himself as the cause of their discontentment, but instead sees God’s absence as the reason behind their unhappiness.)
”So what so I'm crazy then send me justice and I'll have Paris in flames” - (Ryan doesn’t believe he’s insane, but accepts that everyone else thinks he is. He is also extremely angry at God for not including the Mage in the Riddle. Technically, due to their lack of mention in the Riddle, the Mage are an uncatalogued race and Ryan has developed an inferiority complex due to this. This would explain his cruel and systematic genocide of the other uncatalogued races throughout the Fence. As we know, House Atlantic, where Ryan lives, is on Paris: Earth and he is having Coheed and Cambria sent there to unleash the Monstar. He sees the Monstar as his way of enacting justice against God’s wrongs against him and pretty much tells everyone who calls him crazy ‘give me a means of defying God and I’ll show you just how serious I am.’)
”Still searching for your faith
in the arm that killed the President” - (Ryan refers to God as the ‘President’ because of how Man and Prise look to him for guidance and leadership. He thinks they are foolish in still faithfully searching to God to give some sort of sign that he is still there. They expect God to reach down and cure their ills. Ryan, however, believes that it was God’s very own arm that, in building Heaven’s Fence and causing God to sleep, indirectly caused God’s own death. Essentially, Ryan believes that God was killed by the same arm that he used to Create.)
”Relapse: waiting here for…” - (Ryan already knows that Mayo has relapsed, or failed to complete his mission completely, and Ryan is considering demoting Mayo and replacing him with Crom. In the meantime, Ryan waits for Crom to arrive and to hear from Mayo. After Mayo informs Ryan of the first failure (Claudio) later in the song, Ryan decides to go ahead and demote Mayo.)
”Still searching for your face
in the crowd that killed the president” - (Ryan continue to mock everyone as they look to the sky for a sign of God’s presence [his face]. When Ryan says ‘the crowd that killed the President’, he’s actually referring to Heaven’s Fence itself: the crowd of planets that, in Ryan’s mind, caused God to die. Remember, in this universe, when people look up to the sky, they don’t see stars; they see the Keywork and nearby planets.)
”I need Mayo” - (This is Ryan pressing the com. And asking for General Mayo in order to check on the progress in capturing Coheed and in killing the children. Ryan is in a hurry because he sees Coheed not as a living being but as a tool or instrument that is vital in his defiance of God. Ryan considers the Monstar to sort of be his personal Helionaut, or herald of Armageddon.)
”I won't fail you now” - (This is Mayo, telling Ryan that Stage One is complete and he’s heading out to the Kilgannon house, but he still can’t find Claudio. He promises Ryan that he won’t fail; that the boy will be dead by the time Coheed and Cambria reach Paris:Earth.)
”Dear Captain send the S.O.S
When we're gonna go down” - (Ryan, once again musing to himself, pretty much tells a rhetorical ‘Captain’ to send off a cry for help when he finally unleashes the Monstar and destroys the Keywork, once again referring to the Fence as a ship. Ryan is essentially challenging the citizens of the Fence to go ahead and pray to God, since Ryan believes God is long gone and will not come to help.)
{during second chorus}
“I won’t fail you now (We're going down and you're all fucked up for sure)” - (This shows how fanatical Mayo is toward Ryan and Ryan’s cause. He’s telling the denizens of Sector 12 that Ryan will succeed and the Keywork is doomed and that all of those living on Sector 12 are fucked.)
”Wound open and squeezing my heart against this pain inflicts
and in passion I bleed for it.” - (This is Ryan looking at and considering the deformities all over his body that he suffered as a result of the Mage Wars. They serve as a constant reminder [squeezing his heart] of how much he’s sacrificed [bled for] for his cause in order to achieve his nihilistic goals.)
”But with this what they gave me this book
and flint and a match to go with it.” - (Ryan comments on this fact that in exchange for the injuries he suffered in defeating the other Mages, he not only gained complete control of the Keywork and Heaven’s fence, but he also gained control of a means to destroy that which he gained: Cambria/the Knowledge [the Book], Coheed/the Beast [the Flint, since he is a weapon like a flint arrowhead or spearhead], and Jesse/the Inferno [the match aka the fire starter].)
”Still searching for your face
in the crowd that buried New Mexico” - (When they see no sign of God in the sky, they instead look to his appointed Guardians; the Prise, to protect Heaven’s Fence. Sanchez uses New Mexico and the secrets hidden there [Area-51, Roswell] as a metaphor for hidden truth. Basically, Ryan is accusing the Prise of hiding [burying] the truth of God’s Riddle.]
”I'll be waiting here for” - (Much like everyone else, Ryan is waiting for some sign from God. But, believing that sign will not come, Ryan also waits for his justice: the Monstar.)
Ryan contacts Mayo again and learns of the battle at the Kilgannon house and that Coheed and Cambria are being loaded onto the Gloria Vel Vessa. He tells Ryan about Patrick escaping and that Claudio is still missing. Mayo swears that he won’t fail to transport Coheed and Cambria safely to Paris: Earth and kill Claudio. However, Ryan has other plans.
”Have you ever heard the lyrics he sang?” - (Ryan is referring to God’s Riddle as lyrics in a song. He is asking who has actually heard the Riddle directly from God’s mouth.)
”In his thoughtful transmission the words lost sentence remain.” - (Ryan believes that when God gave out his Riddle, he thoughtfully included the Mages in it, but that the Prise, in vying for superiority over the Mages, hid that part of the Riddle and that it is still middle a sentence that explains the role of the Mages and grants them position as a catalogued race. Ryan resents God for not punishing the Prise for their blasphemy and correcting the Riddle himself.)
”Sing his song, sing his song loud.” - (Ryan is mocking the inhabitants of the Fence for their unwavering devotion to God’s Riddle. He tells them to go ahead and recite it all they want, it won’t change his plans to destroyed the Keywork and separate Sector 12 from the rest of the Fence.)
”Structure, will you be the engineer?
Where's your song or have you lost the key or tone?” - (Ryan once again talks to God, this time referring to him directly as Structure [Construct], asking him one last time if he’ll step in and stop Ryan’s plan. He asks God why he doesn’t give forth a new Riddle or Creed. Why doesn’t God speak? Is it because he can’t? Is it because he’s dead?)
screamed: “Crom!” -( Tired of Mayo screwing up, Ryan calls for Admiral Crom, whom he plans to replace Mayo as his second-in-command in order to complete the mission. Crom and Mayo have a grudge against each other and Crom has been waiting for Mayo to screw up so that he [Crom] can be promoted to take Mayo’s place.)
”Thank god for your strength will you hold your breath?
Waiting for me to exhale in the short life lived.” - (Referring to the phrase ‘don’t hold your breath’, which equates to ‘don’t have faith’, Ryan asks Crom is he will have faith in Ryan’s cause. He also notes that Crom has waited patiently while Ryan faithfully trusted Mayo, but now Ryan has lost his faith in Mayo’s abilities [hence, exhaled], who he does not expect to live much longer.)
{the following are hidden lyrics sang at the end of the song}
screamed: “Go! Get! Crom!” - (Basically, Ryan is still pissed off at Mayo and calling for Crom.)
”When you left, and you arrived.” - (Ryan is remarking on the fact that Mayo has left and Crom has arrived to replace him.)
For those wondering about the title, ‘Hearshot’ is a word invented by Sanchez, but it obviously is similar to earshot, or being within range to hear. ‘Kid’ refers to Claudio. The reason Ryan is so pissed at Mayo is because Mayo left Claudio get away, which is disastrous for Ryan. It’s a disaster because Claudio is prophesied to be the Crowing: the only one who can put a stop to Ryan. It’s inferred that the Crowing is the one who heard God’s Riddle and called [crowed] forth the Riddle for the Prise to hear and convey. If Claudio is the Crowing, then he has the capacity for knowing the truth of the Riddle and knowing that Ryan has broken the pact therein written and thus being deserving of retribution. Since the Crowing was God’s messenger, then it is assumed that if God is not able to help, then Crowing is the next closest one to God to act in his stead. In a sense, the Crowing is God’s hand in proxy: performing God’s will when God cannot or will not get involved directly. This is why Ryan considers Claudio to be such a threat.
I’ve decided to do in-depth analysis’ of all of Coheed and Cambria’s studio tracks in chronological order so that myself and others might have a better idea of the story line of the universe and how the songs and the comics connect to each other.
I'm going to give a line-by-line (omitting repeated lines) of my interpretation of each song and explain how it corresponds to the comics.
"Hearshot Kid Disaster"
”Still searching for your call today,” - (Ryan feels that God has abandoned the Keywork, and more importantly the Mages, and that Ryan is still waiting to hear some sort of sign or word from God in order to confirm that God is still there and still listening.’)
”Sit down, and Structure; will you be the engineer?” - (Ryan tells God to sit down and build something again [to structure, or compose, again], to give some sort of evidence that he is still there. Ryan then asks God if he’ll be the engineer he claims to be by stepping in and stopping Ryan in order to preserve his creation. Ryan feels that if God truly has abandoned him and the Fence, then it is his righteous duty to defy God’s will by altering his creation by breaking the Keywork and in doing so prove that God has indeed gone missing.)
”Still tired and dreaming out against and overboard” - (Ryan muses that God, being so worn out from building the Keywork, has fallen asleep. Ryan believes that God, while suffering a nightmare [dreaming out against] and tossing and turning in his sleep to try and wake up, has metaphorically fallen ‘overboard’ and died. Throughout the album, Heaven and Heaven’s Fence are compared to a boat or a ship, so the image of someone falling overboard and dying fits well into the language of the many metaphors used by Sanchez.)
”When pain kills you'll hate me and wait for ” - (Ryan is now talking to Man and Prise as a whole, telling them that he knows that everyone will hate him for doing what he, in his insane delusions, believes is his duty in making God pay for the pain Ryan has suffered. In his quest for vengeance against God, Ryan has killed countless people and initiated the total genocide of the uncatalogued races in order to fuel the Monstar and destroy Sector 12 and Mariah Antillarea. In their fear, the people of Heaven’s Fence will pray and look to God for help. They will wait for…what? Since Ryan believes God is dead and gone, he asks ‘what will you wait for?)
”Or then call me crazy and pretend I left us discontent and afraid.” - (Ryan also knows that if they do not pray to God, then they will turn against Ryan and call him a madman and blame him for all the suffering and fear that they feel. Ryan uses the word ‘pretend’ because he doesn’t see himself as the cause of their discontentment, but instead sees God’s absence as the reason behind their unhappiness.)
”So what so I'm crazy then send me justice and I'll have Paris in flames” - (Ryan doesn’t believe he’s insane, but accepts that everyone else thinks he is. He is also extremely angry at God for not including the Mage in the Riddle. Technically, due to their lack of mention in the Riddle, the Mage are an uncatalogued race and Ryan has developed an inferiority complex due to this. This would explain his cruel and systematic genocide of the other uncatalogued races throughout the Fence. As we know, House Atlantic, where Ryan lives, is on Paris: Earth and he is having Coheed and Cambria sent there to unleash the Monstar. He sees the Monstar as his way of enacting justice against God’s wrongs against him and pretty much tells everyone who calls him crazy ‘give me a means of defying God and I’ll show you just how serious I am.’)
”Still searching for your faith in the arm that killed the President” - (Ryan refers to God as the ‘President’ because of how Man and Prise look to him for guidance and leadership. He thinks they are foolish in still faithfully searching to God to give some sort of sign that he is still there. They expect God to reach down and cure their ills. Ryan, however, believes that it was God’s very own arm that, in building Heaven’s Fence and causing God to sleep, indirectly caused God’s own death. Essentially, Ryan believes that God was killed by the same arm that he used to Create.)
”Relapse: waiting here for…” - (Ryan already knows that Mayo has relapsed, or failed to complete his mission completely, and Ryan is considering demoting Mayo and replacing him with Crom. In the meantime, Ryan waits for Crom to arrive and to hear from Mayo. After Mayo informs Ryan of the first failure (Claudio) later in the song, Ryan decides to go ahead and demote Mayo.)
”Still searching for your face in the crowd that killed the president” - (Ryan continue to mock everyone as they look to the sky for a sign of God’s presence [his face]. When Ryan says ‘the crowd that killed the President’, he’s actually referring to Heaven’s Fence itself: the crowd of planets that, in Ryan’s mind, caused God to die. Remember, in this universe, when people look up to the sky, they don’t see stars; they see the Keywork and nearby planets.)
”I need Mayo” - (This is Ryan pressing the com. And asking for General Mayo in order to check on the progress in capturing Coheed and in killing the children. Ryan is in a hurry because he sees Coheed not as a living being but as a tool or instrument that is vital in his defiance of God. Ryan considers the Monstar to sort of be his personal Helionaut, or herald of Armageddon.)
”I won't fail you now” - (This is Mayo, telling Ryan that Stage One is complete and he’s heading out to the Kilgannon house, but he still can’t find Claudio. He promises Ryan that he won’t fail; that the boy will be dead by the time Coheed and Cambria reach Paris:Earth.)
”Dear Captain send the S.O.S When we're gonna go down” - (Ryan, once again musing to himself, pretty much tells a rhetorical ‘Captain’ to send off a cry for help when he finally unleashes the Monstar and destroys the Keywork, once again referring to the Fence as a ship. Ryan is essentially challenging the citizens of the Fence to go ahead and pray to God, since Ryan believes God is long gone and will not come to help.)
{during second chorus} “I won’t fail you now (We're going down and you're all fucked up for sure)” - (This shows how fanatical Mayo is toward Ryan and Ryan’s cause. He’s telling the denizens of Sector 12 that Ryan will succeed and the Keywork is doomed and that all of those living on Sector 12 are fucked.)
”Wound open and squeezing my heart against this pain inflicts and in passion I bleed for it.” - (This is Ryan looking at and considering the deformities all over his body that he suffered as a result of the Mage Wars. They serve as a constant reminder [squeezing his heart] of how much he’s sacrificed [bled for] for his cause in order to achieve his nihilistic goals.)
”But with this what they gave me this book and flint and a match to go with it.” - (Ryan comments on this fact that in exchange for the injuries he suffered in defeating the other Mages, he not only gained complete control of the Keywork and Heaven’s fence, but he also gained control of a means to destroy that which he gained: Cambria/the Knowledge [the Book], Coheed/the Beast [the Flint, since he is a weapon like a flint arrowhead or spearhead], and Jesse/the Inferno [the match aka the fire starter].)
”Still searching for your face in the crowd that buried New Mexico” - (When they see no sign of God in the sky, they instead look to his appointed Guardians; the Prise, to protect Heaven’s Fence. Sanchez uses New Mexico and the secrets hidden there [Area-51, Roswell] as a metaphor for hidden truth. Basically, Ryan is accusing the Prise of hiding [burying] the truth of God’s Riddle.]
”I'll be waiting here for” - (Much like everyone else, Ryan is waiting for some sign from God. But, believing that sign will not come, Ryan also waits for his justice: the Monstar.)
Ryan contacts Mayo again and learns of the battle at the Kilgannon house and that Coheed and Cambria are being loaded onto the Gloria Vel Vessa. He tells Ryan about Patrick escaping and that Claudio is still missing. Mayo swears that he won’t fail to transport Coheed and Cambria safely to Paris: Earth and kill Claudio. However, Ryan has other plans.
”Have you ever heard the lyrics he sang?” - (Ryan is referring to God’s Riddle as lyrics in a song. He is asking who has actually heard the Riddle directly from God’s mouth.)
”In his thoughtful transmission the words lost sentence remain.” - (Ryan believes that when God gave out his Riddle, he thoughtfully included the Mages in it, but that the Prise, in vying for superiority over the Mages, hid that part of the Riddle and that it is still middle a sentence that explains the role of the Mages and grants them position as a catalogued race. Ryan resents God for not punishing the Prise for their blasphemy and correcting the Riddle himself.)
”Sing his song, sing his song loud.” - (Ryan is mocking the inhabitants of the Fence for their unwavering devotion to God’s Riddle. He tells them to go ahead and recite it all they want, it won’t change his plans to destroyed the Keywork and separate Sector 12 from the rest of the Fence.)
”Structure, will you be the engineer? Where's your song or have you lost the key or tone?” - (Ryan once again talks to God, this time referring to him directly as Structure [Construct], asking him one last time if he’ll step in and stop Ryan’s plan. He asks God why he doesn’t give forth a new Riddle or Creed. Why doesn’t God speak? Is it because he can’t? Is it because he’s dead?)
screamed: “Crom!” -( Tired of Mayo screwing up, Ryan calls for Admiral Crom, whom he plans to replace Mayo as his second-in-command in order to complete the mission. Crom and Mayo have a grudge against each other and Crom has been waiting for Mayo to screw up so that he [Crom] can be promoted to take Mayo’s place.)
”Thank god for your strength will you hold your breath? Waiting for me to exhale in the short life lived.” - (Referring to the phrase ‘don’t hold your breath’, which equates to ‘don’t have faith’, Ryan asks Crom is he will have faith in Ryan’s cause. He also notes that Crom has waited patiently while Ryan faithfully trusted Mayo, but now Ryan has lost his faith in Mayo’s abilities [hence, exhaled], who he does not expect to live much longer.)
{the following are hidden lyrics sang at the end of the song}
screamed: “Go! Get! Crom!” - (Basically, Ryan is still pissed off at Mayo and calling for Crom.)
”When you left, and you arrived.” - (Ryan is remarking on the fact that Mayo has left and Crom has arrived to replace him.)
For those wondering about the title, ‘Hearshot’ is a word invented by Sanchez, but it obviously is similar to earshot, or being within range to hear. ‘Kid’ refers to Claudio. The reason Ryan is so pissed at Mayo is because Mayo left Claudio get away, which is disastrous for Ryan. It’s a disaster because Claudio is prophesied to be the Crowing: the only one who can put a stop to Ryan. It’s inferred that the Crowing is the one who heard God’s Riddle and called [crowed] forth the Riddle for the Prise to hear and convey. If Claudio is the Crowing, then he has the capacity for knowing the truth of the Riddle and knowing that Ryan has broken the pact therein written and thus being deserving of retribution. Since the Crowing was God’s messenger, then it is assumed that if God is not able to help, then Crowing is the next closest one to God to act in his stead. In a sense, the Crowing is God’s hand in proxy: performing God’s will when God cannot or will not get involved directly. This is why Ryan considers Claudio to be such a threat.