Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Song of the day: AFI - ...but home is nowhere



AFI is a band from Ukiah, California. They have been around since 1991, and have released 8 studio album and various EPs and singles. They started off first playing straightforward hardcore punk, then evolved into a sort of Misfits-like horror punk, then incorporated a darker edge and became more poetic and melodic into a sort of gothic punk band. The song ...but home is nowhere is the last track from their multiplatinum breakthrough album, Sing the Sorrow released in March 11, 2003. The lyrics are beyond incredible. I think they have to do with not belonging, feeling like an outcast and wanting to be understood. There is also this metaphor throughout the song about life being like a play. "When the director sold the show, who bought its last rites? They cut the cast, the music, and the lights This is my line, this is eternal How did I ever end up here?" There is a definite theme in this entire album referring to death and rebirth, a very zen theme. I love this song so much and it's a song I point to to show what a unique and poetic band AFI is. It is followed by the poem, This Time Inperfect about the different stages of a person's life. So touching and I remember it gave me goosebumps when I first heard it. Here is the song:

and lyrics:

Twenty-six years and seems like I've just begun
To understand my, my intimate is no one
When the director sold the show, who bought its last rites?
They cut the cast, the music, and the lights

This is my line, this is eternal
How did I ever end up here?
Discarnate, preternatural
My prayers to disappear
Absent of grace, marked as infernal
Ungranted in dead time left me disowned
To this nature, so unnatural
I remain alone

Twenty-six years end, still speaking in these tongues
Such revelations while understood by no one
When the new actor stole the show, who questioned his grace?
Please clear the house of ill-aquired taste

This is my line, this is eternal
How did I ever end up here?
Discarnate, preternatural
My prayers to disappear
Absent of grace, marked as infernal
Ungranted in dead time left me disowned
To this nature, so unnatural
I remain alone

Give me something, give me something
Give me something, give me something
Give me something, give me something real

I lay strewn across the floor, can't solve this puzzle
Everyday another small piece can't be found
I lay strewn across the floor, pieced up in sorrow
The pieces are lost, these pieces don't fit
Pieced together incomplete and empty

This is my line, this is eternal
How did I ever end up here?
Discarnate, preternatural
My prayers to disappear
Absent of grace, marked as infernal
Ungranted in dead time left me disowned
To this nature, so unnatural
I remain alone

This is my line, this is eternal
How did I end up here?
Discarnate, preternatural
My prayers to disappear
Absent of grace, marked as infernal
Ungranted in dead time left me disowned
To this nature, so unnatural
I remain alone


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