Interpretations:With The Dark
- Song
- Lyrics
- Interpretations
- Credits
- Guitar Tab
- Bass Tab
- Chronology
Per Jade's request, here's my summary of it, though I haven't really thought this through yet.
Simply put, it sounds like it's the story of the revolution against happiness, from the perspective of the revolutionary. The girl is all things gloomy, in love with all things gloomy, and causes others ("you") to share in that gloominess. Shift in music. She likes this idea of being in love with the dark, opposite of the traditional belief (which takes place during the horn section), and the next stanza is her wanting to be rid of all those dreams and themes of the nautical (mundane) life which she never chose in the first place, probably angered at the fakeness. Aside: "Rocking my peg-leg stump, my mind naturally turns to taxidermy" is genius. Shift in music. She goes for it, and her old life and notions, disintegrated. Shift in music. She entirely embraces this new philosophy (though you can't really call it that) and proceeds to spread it. She finds herself at the head of this movement for the dismantling of societal norms, "leading the charge of the wrong"; the old values and assumptions of dark-is-bad/light-is-good were stagnant and decaying, and it was now time for a take-over to establish the new and radical. She wins. And now life is based on darkness and society is in command of the out-of-control, which I'm sure will work out fine. ~ magbatz
- um, wow. I have no idea how you could do that, thanks. I've listened to this song about 40times on repeat and I figured that the three different "songs" embedded in it weren't related at all. Kind of like long fingertips. Jade
I think that this song is a battle between different bands for control over the song. The first part is an acoustic, low-key ballad about a gloomy girl. Then, the style completely changes, becoming more rowdy, and the horns come in, as if to herald the entrance of an intruder. A new band jumps in, and completely unrelated words are being sung. (I think this section is a style parody of R.E.M. The vocals sound a lot like Michael Stipe and the lyrics are erratic, awkward and unrelated even by TMBG standards - much more R.E.M. style). Soon, a third band shows up, with more breathy vocals and a more creepy and unsettling off-kilter kind of sound. Then a fourth band jumps in, with a much more poppy and guitar-driven sound, blatantly stating their purpose by screaming "We're taking over!" repeatedly. (The blatantness of their proclamation may be a parody of the simplicity and lack of depth found in many pop lyrics) Then the third band and fourth band enter a battle of sorts - the fourth band proclaims "We're taking over!" again and asserts "We're back in control", but then the third band retaliates again with more creepy and weird lyrics.
Here's my theory: Perhaps its about the rise of the emo scene. A scene all about enthusiasm for sadness and gloom is taking over. "She's in love With her broken heart" "Leading the charge of the wrong" "No more sunlight, please" --TVsKyle 20:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I think you're all way off base, but I don't have any ideas of my own =P
- That's not very constructive, Anonymous. If you think we're off base, why not try debunking us? Tell us why we're off base! That'd be much more interesting than random nay saying. --TVsKyle 16:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- I go along with the Emo -thing to a point. I feel it is about some sort of revolution or uprising gone wrong.
- It starts out good, but in the end is "rusted, incrusted, combusted and dusted." So possibly the rise of the "independent" music scene. As soon as they receive a bit of notoriety they have already become what they railed against before - popular music. - fortytwo
I think It's about the shift in the music eras. The Nautical stuff is kinda like the happy jolly beatles songs... Then when It goes into the "We're taking over: which sounds like a revoultion and the she's in love with the dark, I think of it when a cultural reveloution came along. Or It describes the day music died and how after that, bands got into drugs. Then When it says she's in love with the dark, It's when everything goes and the grunge destroys the other music... Kinda like how TMBG became unpopular when grunge came into the scene. The song is a definition of culture changes in music... -user:Nerdy4ever95
This is a very interesting song. I got something different: | My first impression of this song is how it seemed to be structured: sandwiched by talk about a girl who loves the dark on the top, and a plea to stay in the dark on the bottom. The sections in between are unusually different, with lyrics as well as musical aspects like key or mode, style, instrumentation, even their voices; the only things that seem preserved is that sometimes the same chords are used in the same context. | So from that, I believed it was all about a girl who prefers to hide in the dark because she wants to dream or fantasize rather than face reality. The middle sections are more about different dreams/fantasies that she dreams/fantasizes about, which, as dreams tend to be, are very diverse. She dreams that she can forget about her nautical life-style, and it's possible that the "taking over" section shows her desire for everyone else to hide in the dark too, because she doesn't want them to suffer (with one person in particular, since a partner is implied). Like in a dream, everything happens faster than she expects it, with only a short transition between her dreams of escape and her dreams of mobilization, and where they say 'I/you looked around and soon we were there'. The transition sections could be a short reflection on how horrible the reality around her is. All this ends with a plea to stay in the dark. | All this sounds right, except that this makes sense with the quote "She's in love / With the dark," but not with "She's in love / With her broken heart." It's possible that she lives like this because of some tragedy related to someone she loved (probably the "partner" mentioned above) and now finds it easier to live by what her broken heart has been telling her, which was to hide in the dark. | This make sense with me, anyway, because I look at songs like these psychologically.
- Technochocolate
Full fingers[edit]
I think it's a more highly-evolved version of Fingertips, and as such It Might Be my favorite song in the vast John-John universe.
putting them all in the ground[edit]
First of all, a ghostwriter is someone who writes under someone else's name (not a pen name but another actual person's name). So the first intro lyrics seem to make me think someone is taking credit for other people's work and somehow getting rid of them ("sending them down") and she does it because she's depressed and loves doing this to people. Maybe the people she gets rid of start out as boyfriends or people close her and she can't help but doing this to them. And she does it even though she knows it's wrong and at the end of her life she's so tired of it that she welcomes death ("No more sunlight please"). Either that or she ends up having to hide from everyone and staying in the dark. Barton 04:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
A Crazy One...[edit]
...submitted for your entertainment.
The first two stanzas describe Shirley Manson of Garbage:
Here she is singing "I'm Only Happy When it Rains", a song that totally captures her persona:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esEdC0c3YI4
The third stanza is Flansy fictionalized into a world-weary pirate.
They have some type of dramatic encounter then decide to lead their deluded fans as an army to take over the world. Then they destroy the sun.
I did warn you that this was gonna be crazy right? ChaosS (talk) 22:14, 12 September 2013 (EDT)
Parody[edit]
It seems to me that this song is a parody of rock operas, with lyrics that don't go much beyond the topics of love and revolution, as well as a general vagueness throughout it that is only explained through the music video, which is a common problem I see with rock operas. It even has the tropes; a calm intro, an orchestral rocking opener, a villain song, and a fight song. There is no way that this isn't a parody of rock operas.
Tanline666 (talk) 00:24, 10 April 2023 (EDT)
