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Post by delphinar on Jan 15, 2010 13:24:35 GMT -5
Do you think 'The Great Elsewhere' was inspired by Ferdinand Magellan's last voyage. It seems to fit the last battle he was in when he was killed. Also I think the ship's name was Victoria as well. They were also converting people too.
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An Amateur
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Post by An Amateur on Jan 15, 2010 15:02:26 GMT -5
You guys are thinking about it too much like a book and not enough like a 2-disc playstation game. Midnight - Shirt = Disc 1 Elsewhere - What = Disc 2 Midnight Directives is the opening FMV.. Flare Gun is the over-world music....etc etc Yes! I love this interpretation! I was really shocked when I first listened to Heartland, probably because I was expecting something along the lines of a movie soundtrack, what with the orchestras and everything. But really, it makes more sense to think of it as music from a really old RPG! Once we all come to agreement on the story, someone should download one of those 2D online RPG makers and make the Heartland videogame. Whenever I listen to The Great Elsewhere, all I can picture is a little Lewis-sprite battling a thousand soldiers; when I hear that sound at the beginning of the song where Owen Pallett usually plays pizzicatto, it sounds like Lewis selecting a command from the battle menu. Now as for the story, although a lot of your theories are quite interesting, I'm not completely sold on them. The problem here is that the order of the songs might not necessarily follow the chronological order of events in the land of Spectrum. I prefer to think of the songs being told in retrospect by Lewis, as he's riding up the side of Mount Alpentine, relenting about his days in service to The Great White Noise. So really, if we were to think of it as a book (or videogame), it would open with Lewis on his way to kill Owen, while the rest of it is a flashback explaining how he got to this point. I also find it hard to think of No Face and the Cockatrice as one character. I feel like Cockatrice is a beast ravaging spectrum, whereas No Face was originally intended to be Owen's prophet (or lover). In the song cockatrice, however, No Face decides he'd rather not lead a life of glory and become an immortal figure in spectrum. This is probably why some assume him to be a homophobic biggot, for denying Owen's love, when in fact he is just trying to warn the people of their Creator's indifference towards them. So when Lewis becomes Owen's new servant, he is lead to slay the Cockatrice and prevent No Face from spreading his conspiracies. And perhaps Owen wanted Imelda dead out of jealousy? I get the feeling that this whole story is really just about a lonely singer who tries to find a lover in his musical/imaginary world, only to be betrayed by him. It's one big rejection album! This ramblimg has lead me to another epiphany. I've had a little trouble deciphering "What Do You Think Will Happen Now", but I think I have a handle on it now. I think it may be told from the perspective of Lewis. After Killing Owen, he looks back on the world/album of spectrum in all its beauty. Upon realizing his love for his homeland, he believes that whether or not Owen was an indifferent ruler or a passionate creator, the world and the people of Spectrum are all of value, fictional or not, and in this revelation he comes to understand his love for Owen. The only other way I can think to explain it is that the song is sung from the perspective of Owen, who despite being betrayed and staked in the eyes, reaffirms his love for Lewis. Or perhaps I'm just partial to tragedy. Thoughts? |
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An Amateur
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Post by An Amateur on Jan 15, 2010 15:19:36 GMT -5
Also, and I have no justification for this but, I can't help but feel like the first words of the album "cross her off the shortlist" are in fact referring to the Polaris Prize. Perhaps Lewis, upon realizing that Heartland is an album, begins to suspect that Owen is just using him to win Polaris again. This might also have helped guide Lewis to the path to rebellion. "Your light is spent!"
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Post by ben on Jan 15, 2010 15:43:51 GMT -5
^^ Yes Amateur, this is much closer to the way I feel about it. You have to bear in mind what Owen's said about the order changes, and about the point of view and subject matter of '14th Century', and more importantly than anything, the point of the whole album: which is the artifice of an artistic creation. Lewis realises he is a creation, that he is not real, and neither is anything else around him. And then he questions what real even means - just because he is a creation, it doesn't mean he can't be real and can't carry out real actions like killing his creator. When he does this, and discovers that it doesn't mean the End of Time and the world can carry on without Owen, that's I think where WDYTWHN? comes in.
About Cockatrice, I've been thinking about something which could be completely wrong but tell me what you all think:
In 'Lewis takes Action', Lewis sings, 'the stony hiss of cockatrice has cast us into serfdom / I close my eyes and spur Imelda down the mountainside for a liberated Spectrum'. If we assume he's closing his eyes so that the cockatrice doesn't turn him to stone, then cockatrice must be the enemy, or helping the enemy, he's fighting - the enemy he's fighting under Owen's orders and to liberate spectrum. So Cockatrice, or a cockatrice, has got hold of spectrum and is controlling the people.
In the song 'Cockatrice', we find out that the/a cockatrice turned a prophet to stone after he was 'stolen from the family creche'. However, couldn't this just mean that the prophet, whoever he is, was turned to stone figuratively, i.e. 'a statue on a steepletop' was built of him and he became a legend, with the 'hundred thousand in his flock gathering underneath of him'? Does this mean cockatrice doesn't exist at all, even within Owen's creation? Is cockatrice just an invention of Owen's to keep the Spectrumites scared and obedient? Just another artifice? An 'orchestration of their own demise'?
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vestenet
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Post by vestenet on Jan 15, 2010 15:51:23 GMT -5
An Amateur, I really like that idea about the pizzicato in The Great Elsewhere, which I definitely can picture. In fact, the weird electronic hisses and scratches present in the studio version are reminiscent of the sounds of monster or party attacks in those old RPGs, and how those noises would create this other independent layer of sound and rhythm over whatever the battle track was. It certainly ties into The Great Elsewhere's philosophy of polyphony upon polyphony.
I still haven't gotten the chance to look at the narrative as closely as I'd like (still waiting for my CD to get here), but I interpreted What Do You Think Will Happen Now? as Lewis' final thoughts on this now godless world, and how, without Owen, it's still as beautiful and worthwhile a place as it ever was. It's an atheistic anthem to conclude an atheistic album. Throughout the narrative, I don't imagine Owen as anything more than this very static figure (i.e. literally the Great White Noise). Even in Tryst with Mephistopheles, when it comes time for Lewis to "kill" him, Owen doesn't put up any fight. I picture him as more of a piece of scenery than any truly imposing and godlike figure, and Lewis doesn't so much kill him as completely reject him as never having been a god in the first place.
I also really like that point about the "shortlist" line. I don't know if that was the intention, but, considering how at least some degree of self-awareness can be attributed to everything in the album, you definitely could interpret it as such.
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Post by sarpedon on Jan 15, 2010 18:16:25 GMT -5
....Scandal at the Parkade?! gahhh (I still hope this song isn't gone for good) I have had love affairs with many different songs Owen has made, but Scandal At The Parkade will probably always be my wife, even if she has mostly indiscernible lyrics, except for the chorus ( "All that they knew were cottages, cottages, butter them down, butter them down...") Hahaha  |
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Alyssa!
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I'm out on the street with an open case and a mandolin and with every coin I am born again
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Post by Alyssa! on Jan 15, 2010 18:36:19 GMT -5
I'd say the most central theme is recursively smashing the fourth while, while trapping oneself inside it.
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Post by nocturn on Jan 16, 2010 13:41:14 GMT -5
Also, and I have no justification for this but, I can't help but feel like the first words of the album "cross her off the shortlist" are in fact referring to the Polaris Prize. Perhaps Lewis, upon realizing that Heartland is an album, begins to suspect that Owen is just using him to win Polaris again. This might also have helped guide Lewis to the path to rebellion. "Your light is spent!" This is awesome! It certainly makes sense after Owen said the tracks weren't in any chronological order. While Midnight Directives is Lewis talking about how he first left home for a clerical life, he could easily be speaking in retrospect, once he's already had these realisations. Midnight Directives wasn't originally meant to be the opening track, so really it works at any other point on the album. He regrets his initial decision to leave home: 'Thought I was a sad-boy, now I know I was wrong. Since you came along, I can see how content I had been.' I guess if the tracks were in order of Lewis' stream of consciousness, rather than in order of when the events happened, then Midnight Directives would come some point after The Great Elsewhere, so after Lewis has already lost faith in Owen. |
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Post by delphinar on Jan 17, 2010 4:35:41 GMT -5
I'm not sure if I missed something, but it seems Cocatrice and No-Face might be the same being, rather than being different characters. Unless there is two bird like creatures in the story. I'm drawing this conclusion from 'Lewis Takes Action'. Since No face has a beak in the last lines.
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Post by jules on Jan 17, 2010 7:11:53 GMT -5
I'm still trying to work out if was cabbages or carriages (and the song missed the album).
Actually my intrpretation (as in.. nothing to do with Owen's, its mine all mine) is of the struggle between blissful ignorance\ blind faith \ life has meaning (consequential) and awareness of fatalism \ control \ deception (sequential).
You have to put yourself in the position of the actor (Lewis) and then imagine what it would feel to become aware that your whole life has been ordained by the writer\singer (Owen) and the conflicts that would bring. Beaing in mind that although the actor fights against the singer, he's still actually following the song, I see theending as a realisation that with no more to come, the songs will simply repeat.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2010 7:46:01 GMT -5
I have a kinda related question and the question thread seemed to be a good place to put it. Has anyone listened to nyctaper's recording of Owen's performance on Dec 1 in New York supporting Mountain Goats? (available here: www.nyctaper.com/?p=2152) Does anyone know the music being played through the P.A. during the [Introduction] track as Owen comes on stage? It has the lyrics: like a face bears a noble expression/its not the words you love/its the voice of the author |
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Post by Owen from Final Fantasy on Jan 17, 2010 11:09:07 GMT -5
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Post by Peter Heke on Jan 17, 2010 11:51:35 GMT -5
I like Mantler's cousin already. (Y)
On an unrelated note, I think I've answered my own questions on Heartland now. After listening to the CD at last, I can put it to bed. Mind you, I now feel indebted to Owen.
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Post by ben on Jan 17, 2010 11:59:33 GMT -5
I like Mantler's cousin already. (Y) On an unrelated note, I think I've answered my own questions on Heartland now. After listening to the CD at last, I can put it to bed. Mind you, I now feel indebted to Owen. Care to elaborate? ! |
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Post by Peter Heke on Jan 17, 2010 12:09:56 GMT -5
Don't take this the wrong way, but no, I don't. |
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