As “Falling Back” ends, Drake repeats the phrase “Falling Back on…” 23 times. What is so intriguing about this is how it provides an experience of over-abundance-and-indulgence, 23-times in-a-row. It is novel to experience anything that many times in succession, but a melody makes the experience immediately-accessible. As a singer/songwriter, if Drake is trying to create empathy for the anxiety of not making the right decision when he has so many options, a practical way to create this empathy is to experience what is heard for the second-half of the song.
This is a metaphoric and ideological repetition, 23 times. Drake also features 23 brides in the music video, so regardless intention, it is almost as if each line represents a different betrayal or relationship. It is easy to hear this, as with each repeated phrase, the song also builds in vulnerability and emotion; the literal words and meaning become abstract — it’s more about the overall sound.
In the metaphor (and literal reality) of having too many potential true loves and not wanting to choose the wrong one, there is a real fear and hurt communicated, particularly with Drake’s use of falsetto. With the first-half of “Falling Back” about self-reflection and introspection, it is easy for the cathartic journey of this song to inspire deep emotional truth: even tears.
The path time has taken is ultimately the path existence has chosen as its own-way forward: the “choices” of its own unfolding time-line. As it is the one and only way forward, it is sacred and fact — this is the path time has taken.
This path is made from a seemingly-infinite amount of moving parts and mechanisms; all making their own choices (whether consciously or instinctual).
As human beings with conscious awareness, our minds easily question which direction our dreams, desires and internal truths take us. Irregardless the vast nature of existence and the passage of time throughout, each individual and every individual choice play impacting roles in time’s overall procession.
Time becomes a concrete formation of a series of directional choices. While the future is unknown, the past is cast in stone. This process occurs during the present and one’s present is a omnidirectional-sphere of choice and possibility. However, in the present, we are always in the midst of a cemented decision becoming the past in real-time.
Aforementioned and common knowledge: the future is a question. However, the choices, instincts and feelings which lead to whatever the future manifests into — these are very possible to embrace and align with.
For us day-to-day, this translates into an appreciation for the true quality of every moment. This appreciation creates a vision for the true scope of our present reality. Now, with lucidity, we are tuned into what is really around us and the true range of futures which exist in every instance.
Upon this achievement, one transcends passenger-like behavior to become the creator and curator of their vision: in the process, they become truly aligned with the present moment (which is far grander than the individual). When the future happens, one processes it as a continuation of their ever-present vibration rather than any sort of obstruction; Waves become something to ride rather than flee. Part of this is because there is an obtained-understanding for why the path of time forms how it does, regardless direction.
It is quite a contrast when obtaining an embraced empathy of the present moment ultimately tunes one into the frequency of existence: feeling those feelings which drive the macro-collective-future; feeling a sense of direction for WHY the present is headed rather than WHERE the present is headed. Whether on a path in the woods or through the window of the present-moment, a sense-of-direction allows the same prescience.
Even beyond technical feats of conscious awareness, the most beautiful and lovely aspect of all-this is how time is a truth. The past is etched in stone and our futures arrive in the form of a very-real present moment. Embracing this present to-a-point of embracing every possibility the future may bring is filled with genuine love and harmony. In aligning with the truth of the present moment, we are aligning with truth as a concept. We are becoming one-with that which is real and in-front-of-us: this epiphany in-truth is an alignment to a higher power.
The lyrics can be found here. Here is the official audio stream:
“Train getting closer, you still surprised that he battered you”
What used to be your resilience can shift surprisingly-quick. It is a shock-to-the-system when your hope leaves you and the thought of giving-up starts its take-over, approaching faster and faster.
The lyrics can be found here. Here is the official music video:
Daniel Dumile channels various traits of his personality into several characters. One character, Viktor Vaughn, embraces a youthful, ambitious side of Dumile. Another, King Geedorah, represents a colossal alien who commentates on humanity from an objective view-point. On 2004’s Madvillainy LP, Dumile teamed with Madlib to create a character known to many as “Madvillain” (also referred to as “The Villain”/”Villain” on the recording), and it is in this character why so many have flocked to Dumile’s provocative flow.
In the opening statement of Madvillainy, “Accordion”, we have a chance to meet Madvillain — or at least, we hear a testament to his greatness. What differentiates Dumile’s braggadocio from his contemporaries is in the nature of said testimony. The opening narration, “Living off borrowed time the clock tick faster” is entirely detached from the rest of the verse. The line vaguely contemplates upon the notion of time before sparking inspiration from an observer of said narration. This is the masked man who tells the tales of the legendary Madvillain — MF DOOM.
Think of MF DOOM, in the context of “Accordion”, as a street poet or preacher upon a soapbox, dazzling the audience with hyperbole-ridden tales of a legend (Madvillain) whom is not even physically present (and indeed, artistically, Dumile literally hides “Madvillain” behind MF DOOM’s mask). The very next line which follows the opening narration is spoken matter-of-factly, responding to the omniscient narration, as if one was reading a newspaper and remarking indifferently: “that’ll be the hour they knock the sick blaster“.
This line, as soon seen, starts a stream-of-consciousness description of Madvillain as a character. The reason why this lyricism inspires such originality and thought within the listener is because Daniel Dumile is not the one boasting about Madvillain (at least, directly). Instead, what Dumile does is create a third-person narrative, using what amounts to a street preacher (MF DOOM) to describe a main character (Madvillain) which personifies certain elements of a real personality (Daniel Dumile).
While “Accordion” is riddled with interpretive poetry, arguably four of the strongest lines are found in the following verse:
Keep your glory gold and glitter For half, half of his n***** will take him out the picture The other half is rich and it don’t mean s***-a Villain a mixture of both with a twist of liquor
In these four lines, Dumile, as MF DOOM, describes Madvillain as someone who is unaffected by promises of monetary gain and illusionary, ‘glittering’ successes. In the second and third lines, we learn of his rationality for this mindset. While these lines strike hard just for the discussed content, the final line pulls together the reason why the audience is so captivated by “Accordion”. “Villain a mixture of both…” is self-loathing and self-inspiring all at once, admitting that Madvillain, as a character (and thus, part of Daniel Dumile), embraces both extremes — “with a twist of liquor”.
While “MF DOOM” is telling of the “Madvillain” character/legend, the fourth line (“Villain a mixture…“) carries the same sort of off-handedness which follows up “Living off borrowed time…” — the opening line of the song. This alludes a light-hearted glimpse into the actual character of “MF DOOM” (the street-corner poet/preacher), indirectly suggesting the characters within the world of “Madvillainy” see themselves as Madvillain. Therefore, they view him in a heroic light, and not with the same villainous bent as most of the populous.
See Genius’ entry on “Accordion” for a line-by-line interpretation.
The marbled monolith represented exactly what it was — a massive slab of obviousness. It was something that could not be ignored if one was consciously present within the room. However, it represented something more. It hypothetically put forward how we evolved from apes to humans, as despite it being so obvious, one does have to be consciously aware to detect a change in one’s environment — to detect a spontaneous black slab that appears out of nowhere. What I think Kubrick may have been illustrating was how we transitioned from a lesser state of awareness and into something more. The apes saw the world from a primal and survival-based intelligence level. Then, one day, they saw something in a way which they could not describe. It captivated them in a manner which superseded all that in the background. The apes had their first intelligently conscious moment. The black slab was so sudden and so out-of-nowhere, that there was no way to not perceive it with intense reactional response, elevating one’s self from a lower conscious level to ultimately realize human potential. The apes realize that one can use objects as weapons and begin to interact with the world in an evolutionary manner. Kubrick was describing the birth of conscious intelligent life.
Just as the apes, the bones-as-a-weapon realization and the rocky, wild and unconquered landscape acted as an allegory for where conscious awareness found itself, the ending “room” is the same. We see a fully civilized, cultured man surrounded by a pleasant bright white light in an ordered and structured room. Whereas before the sun was the only source of light, now the source is fluorescent and man-made. The world in which the apes found themselves was completely out of their control and foreign, whereas the room the ‘futureman’ finds himself within is completely of his (in the species sense) own creation and understanding.
Just as before, this man sees a black slab appear out of nowhere. He chases it around the room and finds himself getting older and older in the very process. As with the apes (‘dawn of man’), the black slab represents something in which to call attention to and inspire evolutionary reaction. However, as a being already evolved, it is perplexing to understand its context in this room. The man is chasing the meaning to his own human life, representing the human species as a whole. His drive and inspiration is personified as a cold, impersonal metallic slab. The futureman is chasing this until he dies, but with every realization, he finds himself ending up at a goal, with no memory of how he got there. His only memory is standing at his previous position, looking out at the end-goal. He then finds himself at the end-goal, only to not have actually ended anything. Ironically, he finds himself once again on the chase, immediately focusing on the end-goal, until his physical body runs out of life — the entire process fueled by the monolith. Yet even on his deathbed, at the very last moment, with his very last ounce of strength, the futureman sees this black slab once more and MUST reach out to it. He is determined despite knowing that there’s no way he can possibly do such a thing, as he is confined to his bed and limited by his old age. However, he must reach the end-goal and is always searching for an answer that simply cannot be reached.
This man represents what we are as a human species at the present moment — 1% away from complete control but somehow we still find ourselves unable to reach this remaining percentage. Kubrick’s only explanation is indirect, as he eventually zooms into the black slab and transitions into space. We live on earth and we look at space, a massive beautiful black slab, and it drives us. Space isn’t the actual root drive of humanity; it just represents something that makes us realize our own subjectivity and scale. It represents something so massive and so incomprehensible — its existence is a symbol for human ambition. Like the black slab, space is unexplainable, yet we must understand and decode its mystery. As illustrated in the final room, though, we see how the pursuit will kill us. It is only in our last moment in which we will ever feel complete, as death is the only end-goal that can be reached with complete satisfaction. Upon death, we go once again back into the chaotic world which we so often, in life, pretended did not exist. We are so afraid of the unknown, that just to live we have to build white rooms of cutting edge architecture to hide us from the scary black space. This space, like the monolith, represents the majority of existence which we do not have wrapped around our finger. We hide from chaos and disorder, but it always exists. Death exists, space exists and everything beyond our perspective exists and it is out of our control. As the apes did in the beginning of the film, we go insane at these realizations — just as the futureman drove himself to death in pursuit of an explanation for what is inherently unexplainable and chaotic. All perceived order is nothing but one flower in a field of trillions of weeds which are slowly creeping in on our shell of artificial order.
An Alternative Interpretation
The final scene could also be viewed as Kubrick’s interpretation of death, post-existence and post-humanity. The starchild symbolizes the final peaceful understanding felt just before passing after a lifetime of seemingly futile pursuit. The last scene shows this starchild looking over the earth and it is here where the individual starchild transitions into a metaphor for the human species. We see the starchild looking over the earth in a contemplative and honorable manner. If you could replace the earth with “a lifetime of personal memories” and the starchild with “someone passing away”, the intention would be exactly the same. Instead, the final scene depicts the personification of the perfect human looking back upon the earth and thinking upon how far man has come. In this state, one can only observe in reserved tranquility rather than act. For a perfect, fully-realized species, this is the ultimate heaven — to look back on the source of our life, the earth, and marvel at how far we have come. In this light, the ending is a love letter for the human species of the future. We see a peaceful, beautiful, golden and intelligent fetus rather than something wrought with flaws. Despite the journey, despite the chaos that once so defined humanity and the desire to understand everything, we float in peace at the finish line with nothing to do but bask in the odyssey of our achievement.
The lyrics are found here. Here is the official music video:
“Don’t take my life away / Don’t take my life away”
The manner in which she sings this, rapidly and frantic, suggests that this song may work best if you take the lyrics on a literal level before analyzing interpretatively. In the main chorus of the song, it sounds as if Garbus is describing a mugging. From the opening line (“What’s the business?“) asking just what the hell is happening, to the realization that the mugger is moving closer (“From a distance“) finally to the attempt to try to empathize with her perpetrator (“I’m a victim!” / “I’m addicted!“) It all paints a very visual picture. The intensity of this image obvious increases with every repeated plea (“Don’t take my life away!“).
WhoKill as an album seems to deal with similar subject matter upon the surface, and then on a deeper level one can interpret these things to act as metaphors for more intimate personal issues and insecurities expressed in song. If you look at the opening verse in this same “Mugger” mindset, you can see how well it fits with just about every line. The opening, in particular, makes much more sense on a surface level when analyzed from this perspective:
“If I represent the one that did this to you / Then can away the part that represents the thing that scarred you”
It seems to be an extended plea intended to be said to the mugger, only to be mentally pondered. Muggers obviously don’t personalize or discriminate in terms of the individual; though if they are robbing you chances are you have a look of wealth or content. She rationalizes, “If you are mugging me because I look like everything you aren’t and desire to be (in terms of wealth), then you need to get over whatever it is that personally traumatized you.” Such a powerful, opening line. Obviously, we are starting to see the deeper intentions of the song.
Immediately after this declaration of “Fix yourself before you hurt me”, she declares (“Get up / Stand up / Get on it!“) both the listener and herself to defend against the situation as to change the outcome (“I am no longer who you thought this one would be“). A victim can be mugged, but a victim in self-defense is not such an easy target.
After this confidence boosting declaration, it’s revealed that she (as a victim) still ends up running into this mugger once more (“We end up around the mountain that I climb to lose you“) and despite how bold she was just moments before, meeting this mugger causes her to enter a state of shock (“Ask me, Tell me / but all my wisdom departed“). Finally we enter in the main chorus, the confrontation, where all she can ask is “What the hell is going on / How did I get here / Don’t take my life away / I’m just like you!”
This entire time we have seen how simply the song reads in a literal manner, but it’s during the third verse where we start to realize that the song works much more beautifully on a symbolic level. Regardless, finishing up the mugger theme, the victim in the song tries one final plea. She states how “I’ll bleed if you ask me”, and we see how the mugger’s response is a simple “No” (“That’s when he said no“) before we enter back into the confrontational chorus once more. I’d like to point out that the song ends asking the question “What’s the business?” repeatedly, as if Garbus is restating her disbelief of the entire situation.
Obviously, you can replace the whole Mugger / Victim theme with many concepts and interpretations, but what will remain consistent is the general narrative between the two parties. If you go for the relationship-route, the song becomes a symbolic tale of frustration between two would-be lovers. I see it as someone meeting someone who has been hurt in a prior relationship, so badly, that they see all of that heartbreak in every new person they meet, including the protagonist of the song.
This is very similar in subject matter to the song “Abducted” by Cults (I analyzed this here), the major difference is that Garbus is attempting a solution to the problem, whereas Cults focused on the sad cyclical nature of the whole thing. The first verse then declares the protagonist of the song to be their own individual and not connected to any horrific past relationships. The second verse reveals how the protagonist of the song does NOT enter into the relationship (“The mountain that I climb to lose you“), but ends up meeting this person again in life anyways (“We end up around the mountain“), this time demanding why things can’t work out (“Answer me this!“). At the same time, there is a realization that no one wants to throw their time away with someone who is just going to hurt them (“Don’t take my life away“), so the protagonist is repeatedly asking in the chorus “What’s the business” — what hurt you before/are you ready for this/I don’t want to be hurt — before finally revealing she does fall in love (“I’m addicted yeah!“).
Writing this, I see a plethora of abstract and less direct ways (ex- an internal dialogue) of looking at this song from several perspectives, but the two general interpretations I’ve provided do indicate that the song is a song about frustration stemming from misunderstanding and miscommunication. The protagonist attempts to overcome this (in whatever the medium is which the frustration is occurring, depending on personal interpretation), and in the end she finds herself addicted. The real question, is to what? To heartbreak? To falling in love with those who are scarred? The song’s brilliance lies in how many windows it can be seen through, and I hope my interpretation has provided some insight into whatever your personal interpretation of the song happens to be.
House of Xen 