Interpretations:I Broke My Own Rule

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Revision as of 00:20, 18 June 2021 by Nehushtan (talk | contribs) (→‎About the narrator's suicide: format responses)


A descent into madness

I feel like this song represents someones descent into madness after breaking a rule, maybe a family rule or a law. The repeating vocals represent the reverb your own head feels when you're stuck in your own head. 

Jimmyzenshins311 (talk) 20:00, 2 June 2021 (EDT)

Locrian mode

My guess is that Linnell is hyperbolically "lamenting" that he broke a rule he had about not writing a melody in Locrian mode.

About the narrator's suicide

Cw: discussion of suicide as a thing people do

The song seems to be about a suicide attempt. Where dying is the "cost" you pay for absolute freedom. The narrator "lost the high ground" when they "jumped from the top of the statue of freedom from gravity", e.g a Tmbg-type name for the statue of liberty. A jump which is something a few different people have actually made.[1]

And now they will "float into the emptiness". "I lost the high ground" is about jumping from a high place.

The attempt was successful, and the character died ("I'm condemned to hell", "float into the emptiness"). The line "I don't have a leg to stand on" is about literally not having legs because you have no body.

His own rule was one against suicide. Similar to in "Hopeless Bleak Despair", suicide is being depicted as an absolute freedom from what crushes you in life, but the afterlife is depicted as literally hell "I'm condemned to hell") or at least (in this song) pretty lonely in the last verse:

"I'll lay me down down in the dark The dark and sad sad empty room room At the end the end of the hallway the hallway At the end way at the end of time"

A fun little tmbg rabbit hole for this song: As someone on this page already mentioned, this song is written in a musical mode called the Locrian mode. And it turns out the first written laws in ancient Greece were called the Locrian Code, (appropriate for a song about rules). The Locrian Code was written by a guy named Zaleucus. Unfortunately, Zaleucus broke one of his own rules and made the decision to kill himself. Here's the relevant passage from Wikipedia:

"Another law that he established forbade anyone from entering the Senate House armed. Faced with an emergency, he did so anyway, but when he was reminded of the law, he immediately fell upon his sword as a sacrifice to the sovereignty of the claims of social order."[2]

Rest in peace, Zaleucus, who broke his own rule. --Never (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2021 (EDT)

Never is a fucking genius. --You&Me!! (talk) 14:34, 3 June 2021 (EDT)
I love these long interps --Jimmyzenshins311 (talk) 19:25, 3 June 2021 (EDT)
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