BUILT ON ONE RIFF // Porcupine Tree - Collapse The Light Into Earth // Composer Reaction & Analysis
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- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on Collapse The Light Into Earth
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • Collapse The Light Int...
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0:00 Intro
01:02 Reaction
06:57 Analysis - Building Off Of A Single Idea
10:17 Analysis - Recontextualizing Chords
17:59 Analysis - Vocal Production
21:15 Analysis - Lyrical Dive
27:18 Outro
#reaction #porcupinetree #progressiverock
An amazingly simple but beautiful song. Richard and Steven playing this live on the C/C tour will feature as one of my most emotional moments from any gig over 40+ years. The audience waving their mobile flashlights was magical and actually made Steven forget his words!!
This always sounded so unbelievably beautiful to me. I knew instantly is was VERY simple musically, but this moves me to tears.
I think the phrase means a sunset. The relationship was the sun and it now sets down behind the horizon. At least that's what I think about when hearing this song.
Ooooooh yeah -- that's the best interpretation I've heard yet and I think it's spot on. Great job!
This interpretation fits especially well with the music, since the colours of a sunset become more and more vivid the closer the sun gets to the horizon, until finally disappearing.
As people have noted, "Collapse the Light Into Earth" is a metaphor for the sun setting. It's kind of a vague metaphor though, because I could easily see it representing the light of life going six feet under as well. In Absentia is a loose concept album about serial killers (some rape too, I believe) so the lyrics could be interpreted as sung by a serial killer whose partner realised who he was. Then again, it could also only be a broken-hearted love song since the concept is loose and not present in every track on the album. Steven has commented on it in interviews but then again, he also says that he lies a lot in interviews so who knows.
Btw, I would put a 6/8 feel to this song rather than 3/4. The piano is not accentuating any specific beats but the vocal phrasing makes more sense that way.
Steven comments on this song in the Porcupine Tree - In Absentia Documentary at 1:08:00
Such sublime beauty in this song. Its one of my favorite PT songs ever, exploring such a nuanced spectrum of sound and emotion.
Man, I think "below" by leprous, would fit well with this theme
ok Bryan, your whole discussion of the concepts behind the singular vocal to the group to the singular again is used really expertly in a rare group of songs. It would make for a great week theme.
That's a very specific theme but I'll add it to the list as I think it'd be fun to focus on it and see how different people use it for different effects.
Yeah, very much a closing track now that I think about it. Knowing it as such, of course affects my enjoyment when listening separately. Great song for me (having that context 😊).
this is my first porcupine tree track and still the only one i really like. i was and still am in a mountain goats phase and it really hit
My take on "I won't heal given time" is that he's describing something that has existed in him for a long time, which has ultimately led to the breakup. "You shouldn't hang around hoping things will change, because they won't."
In Absentia is a very thematically heavy album. Most of the songs (not all) explore the minds of serial killers, and the music often reflect that through being unsettling, dark and heavy. Collapse The Light Into Earth is the album closer, and though I've never been able to understand what that specific line means either, it's always felt to me as some sort of final statement on the larger narrative theme. A bit of light to cut through all the darkness, a sliver of hope. As in, there could be some light in this twisted world regardless of how messed up I am, or something along those lines. It's not gracefully descending on earth, but it's collapsing into it. But it's still light… Yeah, I don't know if that particular context is helpful, or if it only confuses more. 😅
never heard the album, but given your context, it makes me think about the line "collapse the light into earth" as describing the act of killing a person, from the killers perspective. him collapsing (indeed quite a brutal word) the light that is a human being into earth, death. i imagine the killer as pained, which is what the music sounds like to me, even more as the song progresses, him being driven by compulsion rather than will, stuck in an unbreakable cycle, not wanting to hurt the person that he still feels affection for but being unable to stop himself. this cycle is for me is evoked in the 5 bar phrasing, the extra bar somehow reinforcing the feeling of going back to the beginning of the phrase. idk just some thoughts
Yes, Steven Wilson does write happier, more positive songs. While I think those songs are decent, they don’t stick with me the way his darker stuff does. They’re just more powerful. You might try “Permanating” off his To the Bone album. He also has a way of creating happy sounding songs with dark, sarcastic lyrics. See “Four Chords that Made a Million”, for example.
This one reminds me of Samuel Barber’s Addagio for strings for some reason.
..."a requiem for 9/11 and the day the world changed for ever".... SW's own words.
He did say this, but for context, he also said this is a love song that has nothing to do with 9/11, he feels like the song is permeated with the feeling we all had after 9/11 because he wrote it two days after and he had that feeling, the feeling made him write it.
@@Ramoono True that and thanks for taking the time to research further and to respond. I have heard other reactors state that they feel Steven Wilsons song Perfect Life is another example of immense impact from a seemingly "simple" song. I disagree in a way in that I dont believe that track to be simple by any measure, there is so much subtlety in the instrumentation and dynamics. But would be interested in getting your indepth anaylsis if you can fit another SW track into this current theme 🙂