Synesthesia
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And now for a group of lyrics that landed with a gigantic thud.
Back in 2009, I had an idea to recapture some of the feeling my lyrics had in 2001. While this isn’t inherently terrible, the way I went about it was. Wanting to get that throwback vibe going, I set about writing stuff with minimal edits. If something required too much work, it was scrapped before something else entered the mix. This would make it as raw as possible… or so I thought
It turns out I overlooked one crucial fact however. Those lyrics often came out as unfinished ideas that didn’t age well. As expected, Synesthesia didn’t fare any better. Compounding the issue, I realized upon completion that one thing in particular REALLY sucked. So not only do I have a grouping of things that weren’t fully fleshed out, one of these was plugged in to replace something else and sticks out like a sore thumb. (If you want to play a fun game, try figuring out which one it is!)
Thanks to some revisions before getting put up here, this isn’t as bad as it could’ve been. It’s still my least favourite grouping but comes across more as mediocre than straight up awful now. Writing started to overlap and take place right before my Seasons In Colour side project too, so you might notice some ideas that got shared with them if you sift through the library.
Surprisingly, I do have some favourites from these lyrics though. Those include Villain Of Circumstance, Moneymouths, Inside Your Head and Empty Spaces. By the way, synesthesia is a medical condition where you see shapes or colours when your brain is stimulated by music. I often get associative synesthesia where the sound of a song gets associated to a colour in my mind.
For those interested, you can check out the original version of these lyrics in the Fireteddy National Library. You can also find all the stuff that didn’t make the cut here.
Lyrics Content
01. Vacant Minds
03. Moneymouths
04. Inside Your Head
05. Empty Spaces
06. Life Or Death
07. Excuses
09. Abandon Ship!
10. Interventions
Vacant Minds
Been through so much that I can’t say
Covered mouths, we all get lost along the way
With bloodlines boiling through our veins
Don’t make a sound at all, it’s easy to explain
I’ve been asleep, it feels for years
Trapped inside this nightmare, as our dreams all disappeared
We’ve shot down angels for so much less
With feathered wings and all those things to fake what we digest
Forget those thoughts that you’ve confused
Now throw them back for something new
They never really made much sense to you
As all these reasons lay in place
Holding onto fear, they’re emotions we’ll forsake
Out going, yet so shy I know
A final sprint for home and then we’ll stop to let it go
Forget those thoughts that you’ve confused
Now throw them back for something new
They never really made much sense to you
Lines apart to make a start
For new horizons in the dark
The dawn it breaks to turn and take
What we don’t have, we’ll recreate
A space that lies for an escape
In time to find the lines we waste
But in our brains there’s still restraint
So I won’t be the one who bends
I won’t be the one who bends
Forget those thoughts that you’ve confused
Now throw them back for something new
They never really made much sense to you
Abuses lay for what we want
Inside our vacant minds to haunt
So I won’t be the one who bends
I won’t be the one who bends
Villain Of Circumstance
The sky keeps falling down again
So don’t you pay it no attention
A role to switch from foe to friend
But it lies in our perceptions
Now everybody gets sold out
By some changes that aren’t changes
While we’ve never known what they’re about
It’s all a matter of persuasion
Hold your breath and take a glance
Don’t look behind, just look a head
Yeah roll the dice and take a chance
On this villain of circumstance
Our villain of circumstance
This kingdom come keeps coming down
But don’t you worry ’bout the future
When all our roles get turned around
We can sew it up in sutures
Though every truth will be denied
Through the fakest of transgressions
To host our logic’s suicide
With some wasted apprehension
Hold your breath and take a glance
Don’t look behind, just look a head
Yeah roll the dice and take a chance
On this villain of circumstance
Our villain of circumstance
Well maybe it’s you or maybe it’s me
But there’s always some truths that we don’t wanna see
As we live in illusions for rules we’d condemn
Is it all in the facts or just trapped in my head?
A line to retract when the ending’s mis-read
Hold your breath and take a glance
Don’t look behind, just look a head
Yeah roll the dice and take a chance
On this villain of circumstance
Our villain of circumstance
Close your eyes to get a sense
Decisive minds still on the fence
Will we make it back? It all depends
On our villain of circumstance
Our villain of circumstance
Moneymouths
Will we make it out alive?
No one thinks that we’ll survive
Moneymouths to make our beds
As they all rest their weary heads
You should take these wings and fly
Beyond the dark and starlit skies
Energy and time in time
I swear I’ll make you mine, all mine
But will they ever find solutions?
We’ve been trying to find a clear way out
In this car crash there’s contusions
And we’ve all got our moneymouths
We’ve all got our moneymouths
Did you ever understand?
As the words slipped through your hands
Fractured lines to pass along
With all the thoughts that you got wrong
In the same old songs we hear again
On every side, a new defense
Ascend until you see the lies it spawns
But will they ever find solutions?
We’ve been trying to find a clear way out
In this car crash there’s contusions
And we’ve all got our moneymouths
We’ve all got our moneymouths
From east to west and north to south
With silent eyes that scream and shout
The sun will rise until it sets
For in our time we’ll all digress
Repress what we don’t know
Or when it’s something we’ve disowned
Some contradicting thoughts they won’t let go
But will they ever find solutions?
We’ve been trying to find a clear way out
In this car crash there’s contusions
And we’ve all got our moneymouths
We’ve all got our moneymouths
From east to west and north to south
With silent eyes that scream and shout
We’ve all got our moneymouths
We’ve all got our moneymouths
Inside Your Head
You think that I’ve been sanitized
But my mouth is still diseased
Rabid words to fill the air
So disgusting and obscene
I know that we’re all hypocrites
Sunk down to the ocean floor
Bottom feeding every thought
When it’s hardest to ignore
Picked them off like dinosaurs
This ice age came too soon
Fossils left to leave behind
Like some posters in our rooms
With each reason still in bloom
You can’t contain the victimless
For these stories to come through
Pretty soon we’ll drift apart
But this outbreak’s all on you
Distorted facts for innocence
With reflections rarely clear
Internal judgements laid to rest
As the reasons disappear
Picked them off like dinosaurs
This ice age came too soon
Fossils left to leave behind
Like some posters in our rooms
With each reason still in bloom
Your tortured life, some words ignored
Can’t find the light, you needed more
Inside your head, these thoughts are sick
It’s fucking dead, I’m still a prick
And still it’s slick, shipwreck ahead
We’re fading quick, what’s that you said?
Unlike before, all words incite
It’s such a bore, so say goodnight
Empty Spaces
Now I hear you hiding in the shadows
Through empty spaces drifting in the night
No one really understands what they know
A figure in the corner of my eyes
Off in the horizon it’s still calling
Muffled from the distance just as well
Everyone’s convinced the sky is falling
But me, I’m just as certain I can’t tell
What you can’t see will skip like a stone
You’ll find an escape but still wait here alone
If this is the end you should try to defend
Every space where the rest is unknown
But what would you disown?
What would you disown
Always made to taunt you with indifference
Waging wars so you can make it there
It rarely takes the path of least resistance
But me, I’m just as certain I don’t care
What you can’t see will skip like a stone
You’ll find an escape but still wait here alone
If this is the end you should try to defend
Every space where the rest is unknown
Every space where the rest is unknown
Wait now with blank stares
You know we’re gonna make it there
Nothing’s wrong but still you see
You’re living in some fantasy again
What you can’t see will skip like a stone
You’ll find an escape but still wait here alone
If this is the end you should try to defend
Every space where the rest is unknown
Every space where the rest is unknown
But what would you disown?
Oh what would you disown?
What would you disown?
Please don’t wait here alone
Life Or Death
Outside with mother nature
We’re miles and miles from home
A reminder of what lies ahead
Trickles through the telephone
Yeah it’s everywhere around us
But we never stop to think
That at any point this time could end
And we’re always on the brink
It makes a perfect circle
One that lies in our respects
We could never understand it
When it isn’t life or death
It isn’t life or death
Now somewhere in the city
It keeps calling through the storms
A response that’s left for sheltered lives
And the time we choose to mourn
But through all our hesitations
Made for what’s been done before
In measured time for a resting place
When we always want some more
It makes a perfect circle
One that lies in our respects
We could never understand it
When it isn’t life or death
It isn’t life or death
Afterlives and blinded eyes
There’s no one here who knows
With borrowed time we’ll all rewind
Erased and then let go
Everyone believes that time is under their control
All rivers flow, all rivers flow…
It makes a perfect circle
One that lies in our respects
We could never understand it
When it isn’t life or death
It makes a perfect circle
One that lies in our respects
We could never understand it
When it isn’t life or death
It isn’t life or death
It isn’t life or death
It isn’t life or death
Excuses
As spring time led to summer
In tune for hearts to grow
I’ve bypassed every wonder
Decayed from what I know
Drifting in the air, I can’t let go
We’re nothing more than you wanted to be
The years go by and now you see
That I’m the only one still mentioning you
There’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to do
You can’t change a thing when there’s no getting through
There’s nothing left but you’ve got an excuse
As leaves all burn in autumn
Our summers up in flames
With memories made for deathbeds
When I still showed restraint
Wiping back the tears you can’t contain
We’re nothing less than you wanted to be
The years go by and now you see
That I’m the only one still mentioning you
There’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to do
You can’t change a thing when there’s no getting through
There’s nothing left but I’ve got an excuse
Tortured nights never led to a truce
No thoughts could describe all the words we’ve abused
There’s nothing here that means a thing at all
Marking your steps as you stopped looking down
Ashamed of the past and there’s no one around
Still inching forward as we learn to crawl
There’s nothing to say and there’s nothing to do
For every defense I’ve tried sorting through
With nothing to win and nothing to lose
It’s buried in lies with the obvious truth
I’ve tried my best and seen that it’s no use
There’s nothing left but we’ve got an excuse
Pursuit Of Happiness
You pull the strings that are keeping me here
A foot in the grave and the other in fear
Welcome the world that can harbour our greed
Nothing but a math of reduction to me
Now what if I’m left to wander alone?
Afraid of the words that come through the phone
Inside of my head all my brain cells are dead
And no one remembers a thing that they said
Our pursuit of happiness
Our pursuit of happiness
You cash the checks that can wash it away
One hand in the pot and the other enslaved
All instances trapped for somebody else
I’m used to the shit but get sick of the smell
So what if I’ve left to never come clean?
Obsessed with these thoughts that can’t be redeemed
Now every last name, they all stay the same
In time to sort out that there’s no one to blame
Our pursuit of happiness
Our pursuit of happiness
Redressed with what cannot exist
They’re only lies that get dismissed
Existing in the lines to read between
You’d think that I could rise above
But I can’t seem to get enough
I’ll never disagree that it’s obscene
It’s so obscene
A foot in the grave and the other one lost
We could try moving on but there’s always a cost
Our pursuit of happiness
Our pursuit of happiness
Abandon Ship!
Well this is where we make it out
With nothing left to say
In some comatose reflections now
For the ones who went astray
Safety nets are meaningless
All for losers in the game
Curse their silent mutinies
Then start planning your escape
Abandon ship you idiots
What time could still remain?
Inside our head’s some hero’s bits
But abandoned all the same
There’s nothing to explain
Sold our thoughts to think tanks
While they drifted through the skies
Some guilt to eat your heart away
As we strain to wonder why
Defaced are all the virtuous
So the devil gets its wish
To take you down from outside in
Good intentions all dismissed
Abandon ship you idiots
What time could still remain?
Inside our head’s some hero’s bits
But abandoned all the same
There’s nothing to explain
When all this shit won’t seem to end
I won’t be going back again
Inside out with no defense
It never really made much sense
Now I’ve become a better man
Much better than you think I am
Amends to form our last regrets
So I won’t be the one who bends
I won’t be the one who bends
I won’t be the one who bends
I won’t be the one who bends
Interventions
Everyone’s obsessed with interventions
Little words, all too absurd to mention
Come between this nightmare and some sleep
Nothing that we see is meant to keep
Everybody knows what’s best to think now
Struggling with the will, it’s still lost somehow
Made for futures washed up in the sand
Sunny days without a winning hand
Could you really be so sheltered?
Living blissfully repressed
Well ignorance is no excuse
But again, I must digress
Everyone’s obsessed with interventions
Little words that curb our mind’s suspension
Circus acts to walk along this tightrope
With balanced thoughts all caught up in some false hope
Carnies that could never compromise
Far beyond the big top in the sky
Could they really be so stupid?
All so hopelessly detached
Some intentions convoluted
Tell me how would you react?
Everyone’s obsessed with interventions
Underlined the times for your prevention
Watch the colours come and go
From sounds that you could never know
Dried up and ashamed
Our thoughts have been detained
It’s gonna make an awful sound
But in the end you stood your ground
To come to terms with this
A life of happiness
Everyone’s obsessed with interventions
So take what’s left and rest in some redemption