CW: Death (brief mention), Dementophobia, Gaslighting, Paranoia-inducing, Self-harm (brief mention), Surreal, Unreality

LYRICS:

Could it be I have a guest? Well come right in
Welcome to the foyer of The Distortion
Escher never build a place so non-euclidean
Abandon reason, rhyme, and any satisfact...tory endings at the door.

The calmest and most sensible have tread my trying halls
Still my mazes drove their frantic skulls against my walls
Join their giddy gibbering, their sharp hysteric calls,
How long will it be until your towering logic fa...lters and tumbles down

Yesterday will come next week
Fish will swim on Everest’s peak
Lies will carve your epitaph
What can’t be will watch and…giggle
Fibonacci shells with the ratio gone wild
Spiraling forever, ever, never recon...figured into meaning
I am rich with fractal fiction
Fact is sculpted at my will
Reality is gleefully
So effortless to…shape

I create the loopholes in each one of nature’s laws
Millions of abstractions spring from every concrete clause
Constants are so boring, rationale give me the blahs
I prefer unhinged effects for which there is no…explanation

I’m the syncopation that’ll send your life off beat
I’m the doubts your malleable mind plays on repeat
Sanity’s a losing game and I know how to cheat
You’ll forget you ever knew a life without dec—

Could it be I have a guest? Well come right in
Welcome to the foyer of The Distortion
Escher never build a place so non-euclidean
Abandon reason, rhyme, and any satisfact...tory endings at the door

No, I’m sure I haven’t said that before

False is true and real is fake
Are you dreaming or awake?
Travel to incongruous lands
Snarl the truth with bony…fingers
Reach the final number in a terminable pi
Tell good old Pythagoras, his theorem is a…miscalculation
I am rich with fractal fiction
Fact is sculpted at my will
Reality is gleefully
So effortless to…twist

SPOILERS for season 3 ahead:
Oh but if this wasn’t a brain-buster from the start.
The earliest idea I had for this was that I wouldn’t write any music I would just sing whatever came out for True Unexpected Authenticity. But a) That’s a cop-out, and b) It might have actually driven me to the brink of insanity.
I think I always wanted this to be from The Distortion’s perspective, but as to how I wanted to go about it? I was stumped for a good long while.
If translating something visual, like The Dark, into audio form was tricky, how the ever-loving fuck was I supposed to translate the concept of deceit? And do it in in a way that isn’t absolutely horrid to hear?
In the end, I landed on messing with rhymes to try and mimic the frustration of knowing something should be a certain way, and purposefully making it something else.
I also drew from an experience ages ago, when I listened to a song on Youtube over and over, but it was a weird recording so at one point the sound of an iPhone pinging could be heard. And every time I checked my own phone. I knew it had to be from the song…but my gut reaction was still to check. It jarred me every time. I don’t even have my ringer on.
So I decided that if I could do that, try and get you – the listener – to doubt what you were hearing, if I made you check your phone because it sounded like the song started over, if I could make you think ‘this isn’t what it should be’ for a second, that's as close as I’m going to get to encapsulating this fuckery.
[SPOILERS---] In retrospect, maybe it would have been better to have this come from a victim’s perspective to better get at the disorientation…but it is very hard to resist the charisma of The Distortion. Imogen Harris is fucking Kill. Ing. It. She’s incredible. She’s taken on the mantle of “throat of delusion incarnate” – that cannot be easy. And yet, she makes it sound like a walk in the upside-down, inside-out park. It’s upsetting thinking back on what the OG Helen was like and how she has transformed…but dang if it doesn’t sound like she’s having fun. So I tried to capture that Distortion-patented exuberant sadism with the music, and relied a lot on images of the surreal, and abstract with the lyrics. And I had to try and get that glorious laugh in there.
Still, out of all these songs, I’m most tempted to do an alternate version of this one. Then maybe I’ll feel like I’ve gotten to the heart of things a bit more.
While it’s a privilege and a delight to have Helen around, the effects of The Spiral are among the most disturbing for me. [---SPOILERS] Its right up there with The Lonely in terms of how subtle and cyclical it can be. Maybe because it’s so internal? I can try to stay away from mould, or fire, or holes in the ground…but I can’t escape my head.
It is not a long fall from “I don’t trust these things” to “I can’t trust these things” to “I can’t trust anything” to “I can’t trust myself”. All Knife-Hands McDoorway has to do is give a liiiiittle nudge in that direction and you’ll, well, spiral quickly enough.

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