Prepared to Sell Soul for Muse Concert Tickets

I want to start off by saying im only interpreting the songs/explaining the story they tell me. we have no idea how much of this is based on what matt went through, and that isn't any of my business. im not going to speculate on matt and elle's relationship as that's not something i want to pry into. what matt has decided to share with us could just be a grand metaphor of things, an exaggeration, or a dramatization. maybe he is just laying it all out there and making something beautiful out of the pain of it; for my part i'm just going to look at it as a story. i just hope both of them are doing okay now and that making this album was cathartic for matt.

Matt's mentioned in some of the interviews that for this album he stopped worrying about repeating himself. I think that approach made this album work as an album in a way no other muse album really has. The lyrics gel thematically and link together much more than others with repeated phrases and callbacks, references to other songs

I didn't see it at first because the songs, as always with Muse, stand so well as their own self contained pieces. but when Space Debris came in with the 'as the drugs invade' it really clicked for me. After that lyric sank in, I looked at the rest of the album with new context. Through that lens I see an entire story being told.

Almost every track mentions or works as a metaphor for drug use. the story seems to be about getting addicted to drugs alongside a lover, going through withdrawal and relapsing, using each other to try to curb cravings and it not being enough. In the end, one relapses and the other's support or distraction is no longer enough to pull them back out of it, they are unable to keep the promise of 'in sickness and in health.'

I've annotated for the lyrical threads that I see crop up over and over again in the songs:

reaching out/emotional bids [pink] darkness [purple] light/heat [orange] [red on tumblr thanks tumblr for limiting my colors] cold/withdrawal [blue] drugs/temptation [green] silence/hiding [yellow] [orange on tumblr]

TDF The dark forest is the speaker, representing all of humanity, reaching out to the stars for whatever terrifying thing could be out there. It almost seems like a greek chorus, with hindsight or foreknowledge, foretelling that this endeavor is doomed from the start. The speaker is fearless but should be afraid. A reckless confession, a prayer, begging for death, begging for mercy.

The lyrics invoke poison (cyanide) and the devil (lucifer, also lightbringer), associated with temptation and with snakes (more on that later). In the context of the rest of the album, I read this as the speaker taking drugs for the first time as a way to reach out into the unknown, not fearing the consequences, inviting doom and begging mercy as an afterthought.

All the signals sent out from the planet years ago reaching distant stars only now, too late to be stopped. The dependence can't be stopped once that first pulse is sent out. 'pulse' being that very first signal and later 'pulse' being a dying heartbeat or fading passion on Unravelling, 'I'm a fading pulse,'

A beacon that can't light the darkness = a star that can't fend off the loneliness of space = a drug that can't bring lasting joy = a god/devil that can't absolve or save you, and so deceives you

NSSS

This song is so moon coded to me. 'silver sweat' like sweating in moonlight. 'running from the light' about the moon rising opposite the sun and dancing across the sky until morning. [her being opposed to the sun and the light, cold when it's bright, warm when it's dark, is such a frequent theme in the album] drug references really kick in on this song with 'now I can't stay clean' 'chasing every high' and linked to religion as well, with 'sell my soul tonight'

There's also a thread here with 'silence speaks the truth, I'm split in two' the speaker is conflicted, there's a question being left unanswered, some thread of doubt being buried under the joy of the moment. theyre high together and living in the moment. later on Cryogen, 'evil twin' comes in, when the other shoe drops

Shimmering

after the high is over she withdraws, the speaker is left in the cold, their promises come undone, even though they say they're united they can no longer truly connect. 'ghost right through me' pulling in the same feelings as Ghosts off the last album, 'unravelled through the pain' pulling the same feelings as Unravelling later in this album

Cryogen Our speaker is in withdrawal, the person he reached for is nothing but air, freezing him out when he tries to reach out and hold/contain it. 'winter's end' and Europa, a moon mentioned again: invoking orbits, seasons, cycles, loops. being cold when the light of day returns. 'on the edge of decline' like coming down from the high into a chilling low, trembling from withdrawal and chills.

and because matt is dorky and he WOULD, cheesy drug slang: ice, white, cracked.

Be With You

'my light's been swallowed up' 'used up every ounce of luck' swallowing and ounces are words that again relate to drugs, our speaker has run out and wants to try something new or to find something more wholesome to replace the drugs now clean but having cravings, the speaker wants to rebuild and just be with their partner without drugs and is optimistic they can support each other through addiction recovery

if the drugs are light then 'I long to fall into the sun' is craving them, but I think light truly means passion/joy, and drugs provide a false version of that light, light that doesn't illuminate the void, fleeting joy that doesn't combat loneliness. there's a lot of ambiguity, a lot of mixing of light and dark. is it good is it bad is it too much is it not enough; all that sort of indecision goes into it, into like figuring out what's good for you or not

Hexagons The speaker has relapsed [a failed rebellion], the devil feasts on his soul, they used drugs to reach for something beyond and it fucked them both up. somehow the fight [against addiction] has become cheapened, cliche. in his haze he wants his partner to save him, pull him out of it again, but perhaps was manipulated into it instead. instead of supporting each other through it they've dragged each other back down into it.

'haunting' and 'ghostwriting' echo again with previously mentioned 'ghosting through.' the emotional bid to get through this together from Be With You is being answered with manipulation. love revealed our failed rebellion - an addict manipulating and tempting you because they want to use

Sickness using sex to fend off drug cravings, the song. but depending on how you interpret it this can be so fucking dark

I think there's this awful tension of a couple got so used to having sex while high that now the sex is a craving trigger; relearning to be together without it and maybe not being able to

'silence cracks my chest' reminds of cryogen, and withdrawal pain 'haunted by your name' calls back to shimmering scars, and ghosts and hexagons where emotional bids are met with manipulation

if the drugs are swallowed as light on Be With You, then 'moving in the dark' is being together without drugs, or if the darkness here is loneliness then they're fucking for lust without emotionally connecting.

'sky has sold us out' 'whispers of deceit' like this god/devil, this temptation has betrayed them

too late to kill the high - one of them used and it's too late let's make the most of it and fuck

the pop sound effect could be read as one of them popping more pills, or the other giving in and joining them in their high. or if the drugs are a larger metaphor for being addicted to the person, to fucking when they shouldn't/breaking up but being tempted together again

Unravelling 'the ecstasy was false,' what's left of the relationship after the drugs wear off isn't real, and isn't enough to sustain it [hymn for our love with no god, if drugs are a way to reach the divine]. being together doesn't overcome the actual drug cravings. 'feeling the glow die inside our bones' - afterglow from sex or drugs wearing off; or simply the love fading.

I'll lie beside you and I'll try to play along - they are lying to each other that the relationship is salvageable, that everything is okay

eyes going cold at sunrise as we disembark, as their trip ends

an insect trapped in amber - trapped in something that was sweet and enticing and hardened around them

Hush

Hush is the summary of everything

also matt youre so fucking funny getting ellie to sing for elle i bet you did that just because elle 'elloelle' bellamy would love that lmao

matt sings alone, then ellie sings alone, then they sing together, then all accompaniment stops and matt sings the last line completely alone without music

quiet the cobra = wanting to silence temptation he wants to feel it, but doesn't [has cravings but resists them] "silence is everything" she wants to silence the cravings "(I'm feeling it)" [= she relapses] theyre fighting the noise of cravings and the noise of the world, trying not to lose the relationship itself, but in the end matt is alone

Space Debris speakers hiss - one last snake reference

the speaker can't reach his partner anymore, it isn't enough to keep them in stable orbit 'I'm not what she craved' his support isn't enough for her to stop using. she climbs higher and higher farther and farther way [the higher the orbit the slower the orbit, Kepler's 2nd law]

as her soul decays - she's given in to temptation

the visualizer video, with the sea of satellites around the planet really gets me. it's emotional bid after emotional bid, a civilization's resources poured into all these attempts to reach out and connect, now nothing but waste, blotting out the sun. ough matt always loves to convey big personal feelings with larger scale metaphor