Where Do We Draw the Line?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTXVMGbpVRw
“On your palm an endless wonder… lines that speak the truth without a sound. And in your eyes awaits the tireless hunger… already looks for prey to run down….”
This is the conclusion to our story arc; our hero has made his real rebellion, and he’s addressing the people who feel he’s betrayed them. They know as well as he does that it isn’t working right, but they’re not yet willing to end it, despite the fact that they’re already looking to move on. The ballad addresses them, asking them when is the right time to end things, to move on, to look for things that really are better. A new relationship, a new leadership, a new system… if the rest of the album poses the dangers of moving on too quickly, “Where do we draw the line?” acknowledges that there is a point when you have to move on.
“So why do we keep up this charade? And how do we tell apart the time to leave, from the time to wait? What does tomorrow want from me, what does it matter what I see? If it can’t be my design, tell me, where do we draw the line? Where do we draw the line…?”
One of the important aspects of the song is that it doesn’t actually answer its question. Eventually, all things do come to an end, but there’s no grand plan to it that we can plot out and see. Regimes do eventually become corrupt and need to be overthrown, but there’s rarely a point where you can look at it and say “now, we must act.” Relationships draw to a close, but it’s usually months or even years before you realize that you’re in bed with a perfect stranger. It’s tempting to let yourself be tied up in what’s comfortable once the time comes; better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
But, ultimately, the line has to be drawn, whether you’re sure that it’s time to or not.
“Where’s the cooling wind? Where’s the evergreen field? Where’s my mother’s open arms, where’s my father lionheart? It’s like the sun’s gone down… sleeps in the hallowed ground now. With the autumn’s brown leaves, with the one who never grieves….”
“Whatever tomorrow wants from me, at least I’m here, at least I’m free! Free to choose to see the sign… this is my line….”
The answer to the song’s question is that there is no obvious time… but the time does come, and you have to be open-minded enough to see it. That you do pick the exact moment is less important than that you can see the moment has arrived, especially for the leadership. Trying to drag things out past the point where change is needed is only going to make things harder. Realizing that the line has to be drawn, and that you can draw it, is the most important part of trying to govern your life. You don’t really lose until you’ve become so ingrained in your ways that you can’t see another way.
Revolution Roulette
For reference, I’m cross-posting this one to Dinner Table Taboos, as I get fairly heavy into a political discussion that may interest my readers there as well.
Here we go – getting into the really good stuff here. Revolution Roulette, the title track, is the one that cemented the album in my list of favorites. As with the past songs, it’s one that starts out sounding fairly normal – down with the system, power to the people, it’s time to revolt.
“If this machine doesn’t stop, what will you do if it never goes out, never goes out of season? It never stops as it turns, there ain’t no passion yet it burns, introducin’ my prison! Losin’ myself in this place, soon I’m gone without a trace, freed with that final incision. Look my heart is a bird, it needs to sing and to be heard, not this clockwork precision, yeah!”
The sort of thing you might hear anywhere, hmm? But, as the song (and choruses) go on, it moves into a much, much more unusual theme – one that’s as topical now as ever. You see, there’s a reason the song’s title is “Revolution Roulette.” Like *another* sort of roulette that starts with an ‘R,’ the song poses, it’s a game you just can’t win. Let’s take a look at the chorus as it progresses, shall we? Starting with the first one….
“And the machine grows idiotic.
Who’s gonna be it’s ingenious critic?
Everybody loves a perfect solution to beat the odds against the poorest possible substitution!
What you see is never what you’re gonna get!
Everybody’s playin’… Revolution Roulette.”
The first lines sound normal enough. The machine is breaking down, fouling up – somebody needs to stand up for what’s right and fix this! We love this idea, we love the people who present it to us (shades of election season 2008? Or, for that matter, *any* election season when the people aren’t happy?)
But those last few lines hint at the problems. The idea of there being a poorest possible substitution – not a replacement, a substitution of one broken system for another. Replacing the old problems not only with a new set of them – but possibly a worst one. History has seen this any of a thousand times. The French Revolution – ditching the monarchy for the Reign of Terror. England’s own revolution, when Oliver Cromwell killed the old king and took over, enforcing Puritan ideals. Cuba, China, the USSR – most communist countries, really.
Nazi Germany. Remember, Hitler was elected through a popular vote, on a platform of fixing the problems with the old system that had led Germany into its decline, and the disaster that was World War I.
Throw a dartboard at the dictatorships and genocidal regimes out there – you almost *always* find a case where the dictator came to power through popular support, only to turn on their supporters later on.
“And the machine grows parasitic.
Who’s gonna criticize the good critic?
Everybody has the perfect solution to beat the odds against the poorest possible substitution!
What you see is never what you’re gonna get!
Everybody’s playin’… Revolution Roulette.”
Revolutions are aptly named – they almost always come around to where they started in the end. I’m not going to claim American immunity on this one either – there are a lot of folks, on both sides, who’ve accused the US’ political leaders of trying to establish a monarchy of sorts (I’m not entirely sure they’re wrong either – the barrier to entry in the political arena is a lot higher than it ought to be.) The way that it happens is almost always the same, too.
The system is there for a reason – it provides some sort of service. Most often, it’s basic infrastructure. So elements of the old regime have to be maintained… or, if not, replaced with something very similar. It feeds off of itself, and off of the people – there’s no way to get away from it. What’s worse, the old rebels begin to feel a sense of entitlement. They saved the nation! They brought it out of the jaws of destruction! That they might not have a *clue* how to actually administer the *new* system doesn’t have any bearing on the matter. The fact that everything wasn’t magically fixed when they took over isn’t their problem – they didn’t promise too much, they just need time.
And then it begins to set in.
Who dares criticize them? The people should be grateful! It’s foolish to criticize the people who you owe your freedom to… in fact, it’s not just foolish. It’s wrong. It’s unpatriotic. After all, who *would* complain? Only somebody who thought the old system was better… only loyalists and sympathizers who need to be expunged. *They’re* the ones causing the problems, not the fact that the new regime doesn’t know what it’s doing!
They need to be caught, exposed for the traitors they are, and purged. Then it *will* be the Utopia we’ve been promising. If it isn’t? Well, clearly we haven’t caught all the loyalists and saboteurs yet, and we just need to try harder. After all – some of them are undoubtedly posing as loyal *supporters*, just to get close enough to cause some *real* trouble. We’d better start hunting them down… they can’t *always* have their guard up, we’ll catch them when they slip up.
Whatever. It. Takes. Because it’s for the good of the *people*, you see.
”Everybody has the perfect solution,
But it’s just hard to resist the sweet seduction!
There ain’t no trick to winning double what you bet…
Welcome to, Revolution Roulette!”
And there we leave off – the last chorus, and the final downfall of the revolution as it starts right back up again. The song gives a feeling of a Mephisophelian croupier, taking bets and waiting for the wheel to spin again… but really, it never stops. Some people win, but in the end they always lose again. Because people who start playing with revolutions almost never have an exit strategy.
The successful ones, historically, have been the ones where the rebels had the sense to realize that they could end up being just as bad. I said before that I don’t claim US immunity against claims that we’ve done just that, I don’t say we’re inherently any better. But I will say that I think we lucked out with who led our own revolution – they did a pretty good job of setting it up afterwards to prevent absolute dictators from taking charge. Revolutions are a messy business, no matter how you carry them out… and the results often end up setting up the next one to come.
Album Analysis: Revolution Roulette
Ladies and gentlemen, the Poets of the Fall.
Like most people in America, I became familiar with this Finnish rock band through Max Payne 2′s “The Late Goodbye.” Unlike (I imagine) most people in America, I shelled out over $40 US to actually get a copy of the single shipped to me… it’s a long story, but suffice it to say that I’m immeasurably grateful that they’ve started selling in the US. I love the band, yes, but it gets really, really tiring to keep importing albums from countries using the Euro… especially in this economy (better than countries that use the pound yet, but still).
The Poets may have been introduced to the US through Late Goodbye, but they quickly began producing new albums and singles – Signs of Life and Carnival of Rust both feature beautiful songs, and their music videos are unusual, but still oddly compelling (to be blunt, I think their weakest video is for The Ultimate Fling, but the gimmick to that video explains it – it was directed, indirectly, by the fans, and so fails to include the sort of trippy images that make the videos for Lift and Carnival of Rust so compelling.) If you haven’t listened to the Poets before… well, there’s no need to continue depriving yourself! I’ll wait here while you catch up – I recommend you start with Diamonds for Tears, then Lift, then move on to Carnival of Rust and Locking Up the Sun.
I’ve always had two favorite elements to the Poets – the first was their imagery, the songscapes they would create and the often surreal worlds made by their lyrics. The other was the way they would blend harder-edged songs (Lift, Psychosis, and Sorry-Go-Round) with softer, more haunting pieces (3 AM, Where Do We Draw the Line, and Carnival of Rust). Well, while some people have said that Revolution Roulette was a weaker offering than their prior albums… I can’t disagree more. Personally, I think it’s the strongest, and a Hell of a place for the beginning listener to pick up the band.
That’s why I’m going to open up a new little series here – I’m going through each of the songs on Revolution Roulette, from my favorites to my least favorites, and having a brief discussion on the meaning, quality, and effectiveness of each track. These are all strictly my opinions, and not backed in any way by the PotF themselves. If I actually got out of a song what they put into it… that’s wonderful. If not, well, I’d like to hear other opinions! I’ll be covering one song a week until we’re through the album – I hope to be publishing on Tuesdays.
So, come back here on Tuesday to see what I have to say about the Poet’s… More.
