With Sin Fang displaying all the lyrics on his website,
it’s easy to analyse themes in his music. In this album, the persona definitely
craves to shine brighter as a person and light and darkness are contrasted as
well as mysterious references to anatomy – particularly skulls and eyes.
What’s Wrong With
Your Eyes (hereon known as WWWYE) has a lyric “I threw my arms into the darkness/we flew out of windows/made the trees
grow out of our eyes”.
Look At The Light definitely
mentions light and references eyes too – “Look
at the light while we pull the stones up the well/a mountain with eyes” and
“I told myself one day I’d be a shining
light for you to look at”. This song cites both the persona’s need to be worshiped
by a partner and light/dark contrast, as the song is reasonably heavy in tone
yet speaks of lightness. The music video also shows beams of light coming from
Sin Fang’s eyes and a distinct lack of clarity towards his features. The video
is mostly footage in reverse, shot from behind or beneath.
Sunbeam starts
to visit other themes – childhood and family love. It feels to me like it was
written about, for or to his toddler daughter in some way. After all, it opens
with “Big eyes child”, with choice
lyrics such as “we didn’t have much but
it was enough for me”, “I’ll be a
rock, a boulder/I’ll be your spirit hand holder” but also seems to slip
into more romantic love as he sings about the person being away from him with
other people. But the tone is childlike and kind, taking a break from the more
serious themes seen in the album.
Feel See talks
about mountains and caves, which are declared in other songs like WWWYE, and
has our first mention of skulls – “echoes
in my skull” – and self-doubt is added, which connects with the theme of wanting
to shine and be special – “everything is
wasted on me”.
See Ribs is
another song like Sunbeam that breaks
away from the main themes I have identified and doesn’t fit in especially.
Catcher unquestionably
follows the theme of shining and anatomy – “Let
me feel what it’s like to be/Beautiful and one of the things/You look at that
shine so bright”, “I want you to look
at me/And see something no one else can see”, “A thousand stars exploding in my skull”, “Let me feel what it’s like to be/A pair of eyes/Looking at the sun that
sank in the sea”. I apologise for the mass of lyrics but this song has a
lot of relevant material. It also talks about dreams which will come up in the
next few songs and wells that are spoken about in Look At The Light.
The new theme of dreams is heavily talked about in Everything Alright, bones and blood and
sickness as well. The sickness links back to Young Boys where the persona wants to be hurt like whomever he is
singing about so he can feel like them.
Flesh, bones and sickness are imagery that come up in Not Enough, almost like an epilogue or
coda of Everything Alright and there
is more self-doubt.
Finally, Weird Heart concludes the album and the themes
in this song are that of the self-doubt (“when I can’t put anything into
words/help me like I help you”) though it reach out more, like it wants to be
better and accepted. The theme of being needed and needing to be shining in
your love’s eyes is concluded, and light/dark contrasts are shown between the
music and the lyrics. Though skulls or eyes are not specifically identified, he
talks of being disconnected, spaced and looking into another world.
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