mewithoutYou Band • Page 86

Greg just confirmed in the mwY subreddit that he's back for good

 

Maybe Greg will release the album for us. Please Greg!

 

With imperial crowns we were sent,
Riding out conquest-bent
Daylight is breaking
Wielding the sanctified sword
For the army of the Scarecrow Lord
Daylight is breaking
Balancing scales at our feet
Measuring out two pounds of barley, six pounds of buckwheat
Beasts of the Battersea Shield
At the opening of the fourth seal

The sky, I'd been told
Would roll up like a scroll
As the mountains and islands moved from their place
And the sun would turn black
As a dead raven's back
But there'd be nowhere to hide
From the Judge's face
After which message-less birds take flight without cause
To the silence they've heard in the absence of laws
Or imperial crowns: Unsent, unsigned

 

Memory of a first fight
In our contemptible youth
I quoted White Nights
Thinking that'd get rid of you
And waited with a stone in my hand
But you were quite right:
Nature had another plan
(& failed to run it by me)
Nature had another plan
Some other surrogate self
To live in the sediment of so many somebody elses'
Innumerable lives and you were right:
It's not a person who dies
But worlds die inside us

 

the Pale Horses lyrics are really cool to me bc they don't really mean anything to me in terms of emotional resonance, at least not literally...but I still /feel/ like I know what he's attempting to convey and I still get something out of it

 

i know exactly what you mean haha.


Aaron is the only lyricist that i can have little to no idea what he is talking about, yet still be in awe of his words.

 

i guess what im saying is you can find beauty in Aarons lyrics beyond just what they mean

 

I feel like I only /really/ think this line of thought in reference to Rainbow Signs even though it technically is true of most of the album. Rainbow Signs is one of my favorite songs in their discography and I still try to wring out a meaning from it and it's different every time lol.

yeah, I wish I spent as much time on anything at all as Aaron must spend on the lyrics. the meter alone is impressive considering how much he's condensing but then there's all the internal rhymes, assonance, alliterations....endlessly inventive.

 

this is really well put. this is what i was trying to say but didnt put it nearly as eloquently.

Im curious what some of our interpretations of Rainbow Signs are. Thats interesting to hear youve thought of multiple meanings because for me thats one mewithoutYou song that pants a consistent image in my mind each time i listen (end of the world, apocalypse, events from the book of revelations etc)

 

I thought he had said it was about the death of his father

 

I tend to flip between the literal depictions of apocalypse and just thinking it's a metaphor for the overwhelming emotional overload and subsequent barrenness that comes with processing yr own grief after then passing of a loved one (based solely on the last verse). I've also considered that since it ends with death, maybe the apocalyptic imagery is supposed to be a depiction of the chaos of every day Life

 

see, i could see this for the first and last verse, but the verses i posted above i 100% think its about revelations stuff about the end of days

 

yeh, but reading the lyrics I probably wouldn't have gotten that without knowing that's what he wrote it about and so I ascribe a bunch of dumb things to it additionally bc I guess I can't give the song a break

 

this is great insight

 

but what @EmmanuelSCastle said is basically it. Even if it is about his father dying, at the very least he is using scriptural prophesies to convey imagery / emotions of losing someone. which is dope, i never even considered that.

 

This was 100% how I had interpreted it

 

Yooo I listened to the billboard podcast interviewing Michael and Rickie last night and it got me even more stoked for the new album than I already was... everyone needs to listen if they already havnt.

“40 seconds into the album people will be surprised”

 

Ngl, I legit started laughing at the absurdity of Paramore playing No Friend at Bonnaroo in front of 35k ppl. So cool to hear Aaron Weiss’ voice to the whole crowd

 

Yeah, i loved that interview!

 

I’m guessing electronics are gonna be featured big on this album.

 

I thought he was suggesting it’ll be surprising due to heaviness and possibly screaming. Electronics is a popular move but I don’t see it coming from these guys

 

Electronics can be heavy. I didn’t mean poppy electronics or something like that.

 

Remember when The National said they were experimenting with electronic sounds for Sleep Well Beast and there were people hesitant about the idea but then the album turned out dope?

Electronic elements could be really cool for this band

 

I would love a heavy electronic album from them.

 

At this point this is all super baseless speculation... buuuut, if I had to lay money down and place a bet I wouldn’t be predicting a ton of electronic elements on the record but we will see