everything starts to melt


quotes:

• a way a lone a last a long the. these are the last words of ulysses, by james joyce, the man behind the title of the first track.
• en arche en ho logos - as in the lyric sheet for reaching jerusalem.
• oh human spirit! how can it be that you have cowered in such subjection for six centuries?
• they were the wrong notes for them but the right ones for me (and the adjacent score). the quote is igor stravinsky's comment on being thrown out of his apartment whilst composing the rite of spring. the score is a plucked violin part from that piece. the significance of this is explained below.
• a broken and contrite heart... - psalm 51.

references etc.:
this song is conceptually based on stravinsky's piece, the rite of spring. this is seen not only in the theme (spring as a metaphor for change and revolution) but also musically; the booming toms in the middle of the song, the tune of the 'i feel the prick of pins...' section etc. are all taken from the piece. note that the tom part under that section mirrors the riff from the 13-time beatdown before. the two samples towards the end of the song come from la haine - 'it's not the fall that matters, but the impact'. the words 'no pasaran' - 'they shall not pass' - were a popular leftist slogan in the spanish civil war. all three of us played guitar on the last, slowing down section. the lyrics to the final acoustic part were deliberately not on the lyric sheet, although they kind of sum up the album for us.
the photograph in the background is the horizon over the sea in sheringham, norfolk.

lyrics:
frank: the first dawn for half of the year, my words the first cuckoo. now the springtime, here comes the summer. i can feel the frost cracking under my feet as the fresh spring rains patter a beat and i know that things are starting to change. and sap like blood flows through my veins as i hear the flowers start to open again and there's life here all around. the grass grows around me and lifts me clear and redeems the baby stalks that my heavy feet were crushing. and the birds sing a tune the people know (we know this tune all too fucking well). and i remember the winter, how we hibernated to escape the season's grasp of grey. morning has broken. break in half the first half of the day, smash the ice-sheets that denied us light and start to grow. i feel the prick of pins underneath my unblemished skin. red fluid-soaked quills push their way through my epidermis. my feather's fluff themselves in the cold morning atmosphere. i spread my wings like god over the dark abyss and fall. here comes the summer, the season's end. and all the crowds sing in unison: "no pasaran".
chris: un flocon de neige doux, porté par un vent cruel, se posa sur ma langue et me remplit de joie. exactement comme je le remplit de dégout. (a soft snowflake, carried by a cruel wind, landed on my tongue and filled me with joy, just as i filled it with disgust)
ben: this is the springtime of our revolution... it's-time-to-save-the-world-from-man.
everyone: and all that we ask is but one simple chance to set up our lives with a little romance, and if needs be we'll throw up the old barricades and we'll fight till the strength in our fingers fade.

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