CW: Acrophobia, Agoraphobia, Existential horror, Falling, Megalophobia, Thalassophobia, Vertigo

LYRICS:

Have you heard thunder? Real thunder?
Shaking the dirt and shattering stone
A rumble that ripples far past what is known.
Just a trivial hum for a creature of ozone

And do you know open? Fully open?
Tracts so wide only colossi can rule
That grants liberty to we null miniscule
An absolute freedom both wondrous and cruel

Have you heard thunder weaken the base of all things?
Have you known a great yawn that could swallow all things?
And as it does:

A Titan sings
And it rings
Through the canyons
Through the cosmos
In an echo without end
Forget wings
Just descend
To fall forever is to fly
Has vertigo swayed you to sleep in a limitless sky?
That infinite echo your lullaby

And have you felt height? Dizzying height?
The clime in a cloudbank’s not temperate fare
Childish notions of flight perish there
With the glacial sting from the thinnest of air

And have you seen oceans? True oceans?
What’s left of a tear only giants could weep
Plunges down to where only abyssal things creep:
In the fathomless scope of the Awful Deep

Have you felt a goliath’s breath chilling all things?
Have you seen white-capped tidal waves flooding all things?
And as they do:

CHORUS

So how could you know what is Vast?
Have you meaningless drifted in measureless space
That grows at beyond a cyclopean pace
And makes less than quarks of the whole human race?

Do you know what acceptance infinity brings?
And as it does:

CHORUS

SPOILERS for season 4 ahead:
Fun fact: The title of this piece was originally the title of a fan-song I wanted to write about Dr. Who. I don’t watch Dr. Who. I never have. So…not really sure what was going on there. But at least I got a title out of it.
This was one that took a while, but once I’d finish it I didn’t end up doing too many tweaks. I think it helped that I centered each verse around a particular manifestation, so I had a more solid idea of what I wanted to say within the span of the verse. Talk about something big, choose a synonym for 'giant', imply superiority, repeat. Not a sophisticated formula, but it seemed to work.
I had to be careful with this one in particular that I didn’t stray too tonally close to The Lonely. Faraway echoes are a good indicator of space, but it’s also very pointedly a Lonely thing within cannon. So I tried to aim for a fuller sound in this one, like the voice should sound like it’s filling a huge space, not like it’s getting lost in said space.
[SPOILERS---] In honour of the whimsy of Simon Fairchild, I also tried to make it a bit bubbly. I feel like of all the older avatars he’s the one who’s got it figured out. Jonah’s obsessed with cheating death, Peter’s a bitter old hermit, but Simon is content to just flit about and turn an unfortunate skydiver into the Big Blue's breakfast every so often. He’s even flippant about his ritual. Before ep 175 I couldn’t believe we’d only actually heard from him once. I was sure it was more than that. But no. Karim Kronfli is just that memorable. [---SPOILERS]
I also had to be careful that this didn’t become too nice. Smooth melodies that echo ethereally never fail to make me weak-kneed. (And if the tune is kinda Celtic? Forget it. I’m gone. I momentarily transcend) But as much as I like that stuff and want to emulate it, these are songs about deep, primal, fear from a podcast that is a veritable catalogue of suffering. I worked with the constraint that there has to be malice present in every song. No matter the tone, I wanted to capture some discomfort. If the singer is happy, they’re happy for a really disturbing reason. If they’re sad, they’re REALLY sad. If the tone is calmer and lilting, and gives out chill-lo-fi-tunes-to-study-to-while-you’re-forever-plummeting-through-the-stratosphere vibes, it needs to be offset by implied threat. That mainly comes from the lyrics. Actually, it all comes from the lyrics. (There was probably a better balance to be found, but here we are.) The song is basically a challenge, just set to mostly non-aggressive music. Or, at least, that’s what I tried to do anyway.
Shout out to Douglas Adams for helping me visualize flight in a less controlled, and more terrifying way. The image that came from the line “The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss” directly inspired “To fall forever is to fly”. It’s not that you’re actively keeping yourself up in the air, you’re just…not hitting the ground. I don’t know. Flight is such a symbol of freedom, and other nice things, it feels too pleasant for a Fear to allow. So instead you get to freefall with your stomach in your throat for as long as you want, and when you hit the ground it won’t kill you. Good…trade…?

свернуть