Read this first.
Here's my analysis of the lyrics on Left Behind! Again, this is entirely my own personal interpretation, and not necessarily what the artist intended.
You can read the lyrics here.
Lyrical Analysis of Left Behind by Theo Allred
Overall thoughts: The album centers around conflict which appears to be an inner conflict produced by introspection - I would characterize it as simply a general conflict with oneself, with an emphasis on morality (in Excuse and Airbreathing) and a general air of desperation or at least determination to head in some direction or another (in Rip Me Out, Perfect World, Everyday). The introspectiveness is heightened or perhaps confirmed by the amount of bizarre imagery, which must be either metaphorical or stream-of-consciousness and is most pronounced in Psycho No Cool. One of the most recurring (and understandable) images is body parts/fluids, including eyes, head, fingers, fingernails, throat, brain/mind, blood, saliva, spine, organs, ribcage. These images and the way they’re used adds a more graphic dimension to the sensory feel of the album that I mentioned above. Though this album seems very much about the mind and soul, that theme is completely inextricable from the physical aspects of existence.
Where I can understand them, the lyrics are vivid and straightforward enough to please my own poetic sensibilities (which isn’t always easy) - the only critique would be the length and phrasing of some of the lines in Excuse and Rip Me Out, which don’t fit perfectly into the music. I’m sure you’re aware of this, though, and could fix them if you wanted to. As they are, they at least add interest to the album (The character has little time to polish his style, he must focus on getting the point across).
Track by Track:
Pathetic: The first lines here we get are pretty straightforward though their context isn’t clear. My first thought on hearing this was that “it’s so pathetic” could be referring to popular music today, since I knew the album would be experimental, a far cry from the common fare of the public (think The Outside by TØP). The muted “Well, luckily…” could even be seen as a confirmation of this, as if the songwriter is satisfied with his “unique” work.
In light of the album’s themes, though, I would interpret these lyrics as a general dissatisfaction with oneself or with others, which then ties in well to “Excuse,” with its (less cynical) commentary on hypocrisy. It reminds me a bit of Ecclesiastes.. “There is nothing new under the sun.”
As for the spoken statement at the end… if we conjectured that in this album the main character/speaker is battling a personified darkness/evilness within his own self (think Blurryface) (I’ll try to support this more later on), this statement could be an utterance of such a figure, expressing satisfaction with the distressed mental state of the main character, for lack of anything more specific.
Excuse: Giving this song a quick listen, the premise seems straightforward: it’s about the hypocrisy evident in all of us, the excuses we all make, and based off the ending, our inherent flaws.
But looking closer complicates this view! A new theme is introduced in the chorus: “Trying to understand why all roads lead to you/Let the world show me the truth/Discovery’s wonderful, even if it’s nothing new.” This notion of seeking truth is in the second chorus as well: “Let the world show me the truth/Discovery’s still painful, even if it’s nothing new,” right after he proclaims “who wants to be responsible for the truth?” The character is on some kind of intellectual journey towards an unidentified “you” and trusting in “the world” to show him the truth even though it seems no one wants to be responsible for it. The only way I can make sense of this is to point out that he is seeking a truth external to himself while refusing to act on the truth about himself (“Tell me I’m wrong and I probably won’t disagree/It’s all so I can be who I want to be”). I’m really not sure what the connection is, though.
There’s another interesting line in the first verse: “As my mind tries to dissuade me so desperately/I’ll take it to the shed and shoot it with such glee.” If his mind represents his conscience, this could fit in with the hypocrisy theme, but his intention to kill his mind is also interesting considering he’s “trying to understand” and find “the truth” later on. (At this point I may be reading too much into it).
Technique/writing:
-Starting the second chorus with “Everybody’s got an excuse” after “I’m looking for an excuse” is one of those great moments when the listener’s brain can fill in what’s coming, both because of the “excuse” mentioned in the first chorus and because “everybody’s got an excuse” is a straightforward/ordinary sounding phrase.
-About the ending: the buildup isn’t exactly eloquent, but once the mind has bypassed that these lines provoke genuine pondering
Other:
-Fun fact: originally misheard “my mind” as “mama” and was intrigued but confused
-I can’t help but point out that this song reminds me of “Holding Onto You,” firstly with the conflict between one and one’s mind and also with the presence of an ambiguous “you” being addressed in the chorus.
Rip Me Out:
It would take too long, and be unfruitful, in my opinion, to try to interpret every one of these lyrics - for interpreted they must be, there is no way to explain them literally. Nor could I try to reconcile all the nuance there seems to be. First I’ll say that in general (this is more of a musical analysis): this song steadily narrows itself and pierces down, down into the depths of the character’s entire being without leaving anything untouched until falling into limp desperation in the bridge and then struggling to its feet like a tired monster afterwards - like Caliban from Shakespeare’s Tempest if it was his own self he was fighting against.
The strange activities detailed in the verses, with their intensity and physicality, have the feel of something from Dante’s Hell or Purgatory, or any self-abasing activity from a medieval text, but they seem less about punishment or penance and more about introspection: the thorough exploration and discovery of oneself which leads to abject dismay (in the chorus).
Also here’s a confession: I originally misheard “demise” as “deep mind” when hearing the Samuel-sung version of this song, and that mishearing carried over into the actual song, influencing my interpretation of it as “being trapped in one’s mind.” Now it seems it’s not just his mind the character’s trapped in, but his whole doomed self.
I don’t know what to do with the bridge, but if we go with my Blurryface-theory, this could be describing the character trying to destroy the dark parts of himself.
Favorite lines:
-”Pull out a chunk of red”
-“Let out a puff of every single fantasy in your head”
-”Wait until you can step outside the canyon of your eyes”
-”It’s such a lovely sight to finally grab some more loose ends”
Psycho No Cool:
Well, here’s a song that practically requires a glossary. These stream-of-consciousness lyrics are actually pretty fun to read and some of them seem strangely paired with the aggressiveness of the singing style. They ultimately describe repulsive imagery: “viral fingers cancerous sirloin” “soft and chewy poisonous freezing” but before that some of them are even pleasant: “everlasting afternoon sunbathe” or just fun: “creamy cheesecake compression shoegaze.” With mentions of morning and afternoon, bathtubs and doors, this almost evokes moving around the house engaging in daily routine, but is mainly consumed in dreamlike imagery. “As you grab your brain” is the most interesting lyric. It makes sense that it’s at the end, since the lyrics before that certainly aren’t very rationally ordered (as if by a mind/brain), but why was the character separated from their brain in the first place?
“Feeling nothing except ecstasy really just means feeling nothing” - also interesting that the most straightforward lyrics in the song are completely unintelligible.
Airbreathing:
In substance, this song carries the same themes as “Excuse”. The character’s psyche has gone from dismay in Rip Me Out, to sedated confusion in Psycho No Cool, back to what we had in Excuse: straightforward statement of guilt, over bright piano motifs. Except that in this case the lyrics don’t get very far before being overtaken by something… else.
Given all its simplicity I want to say just how pleasing these lyrics are poetically, both with the rhymes: “day” and “way”, “find” and “justify” and “pride” and the repetition enforcing the very idea of “everyday.”
Perfect World:
My first question is, who is “he”????? Along with the soothing background melodies this song starts feeling like a lullaby, first preaching the absence, or confinement, of this mysterious “he” - whom I would interpret as the “darker self” character I’ve been theorizing about - and then describing… the character’s heart? Are we inside it? Is the character’s heart the one place we are free of the “darker self” or does this bloody imagery have another meaning?
In the next part of the song my mental image is overwhelmingly that of a massive cathedral. The strings mount ever up and up to sublime heights, sometimes bright as “light filters through” Gothic windows and sometimes discordant as if this is all being viewed in a nightmare, images blurring and overlapping. The singer stands in the middle of the cathedral and his voice is eclipsed by the blinding, rushing light into soft croonings.
Finally a challenging, almost crass pronouncement echoes through the hall, then sputters out. I still don’t know what to make of this.
Everyday:
The mental image I get from this song is that of an epic hero, someone famed, feared, and supernaturally powerful - trees burn to light his way, “they” come out to play once he’s not there, and he “grabs onto the sky” and “flies away.” The song also includes images from earlier in the album: eyes (Pathetic), wounds (Rip Me Out), a brain which is apparently being handled (Psycho No Cool), and the command for some kind of violence to be inflicted on one’s face (Perfect World). This hero obviously epitomizes the same desperation shown in Rip Me Out, and so maybe this is just another perspective on the “main character.”
Whatever precisely is going on I don’t know, but it ends up with conflict again, and I’m going to theorize it’s between the “main character” and this “darker self” I’ve been conjecturing about: first we have “Get your hands off of my brain.” This suggests that the darker self has been maintaining influence over the main character’s brain, and it’s time for that to end. Then, “you disgust me with your smiling face.” This reminds me heavily of “Excuse” and “Airbreathing” where evil is covered up with excuses and with catchy melodies. It’s time for the hypocrisy to end, too. The last few lines of the whole album are violent and definitely memorable. “So take your fingernails, rip off my face. Pour the blood into the rain.” I’m not sure who’s speaking, or if there’s a difference at this point. But let’s assume that now, the darker self is finally admitting defeat. The hypocritical “smiling face” is being stripped away.