#candybrain

So this post won’t make any sense at all without the last post.  Go read the last post if you haven’t already -- the songs work best if you hear the last one first, and then this one.

So I already explained the basic situation with Candybrain and The Red Door, so I’ll just post the lyrics for The Red Door and then a bit of commentary, and... oh crap, The Red Door is obscure enough that there are no lyrics out there for it.  Literally the only lyrics I can find are the first two lines, written before someone’s Captain America fanfic, which aren’t going to help me because I already knew the first two lines.  Which means I have to give you what I can hear of it, even though I’m pretty sure I got a couple words wrong (but no amount of listening makes me know what they’re supposed to be).

The red door is standing open As you wake from dreamless sleep Waiting for you like an ocean Endless white and mottled deep You have slept the sleep of ages When you wake you’re all alone And it all comes back in stages To you out here in The Zone

Times of plenty, times of pain Many coats you wore But the folks that bought you the boiling rain Are gathering here once more Through the red door

(Artemis?)

And you’ve tasted all the flavors bitter sweet and in between You were not a willing savior You were innocent and clean Waves of laughter, waves of hope Break on distant shores As you leave behind you the smell and the smoke Of a short and final war Through the red door

(Artemis?  Come out and play!  Artemis?)

You have slept the sleep of ages (slept the sleep of ages) You have slept the sleep of ages (slept the sleep of ages)

And it all comes to this And it all starts once more There are shapes in the mist Calling you through the red door

(Artemis?  Come out and play!)

Through the red door Through the red door Through the red door Through the red door

(Artemis?)

Through the red door

So the first time I played these two songs for a musician friend, she was pissed off.  First she was pissed off because she thought that Candybrain had something in the beginning few bars that was trying to imitate the sound of a particularly irritation-inducing binaural beat, which she found grossly manipulative.  (I can’t hear binaural beats so I still don’t know which sound she’s referring to.)  Then she was pissed off that I was listening to dystopian music (she knows that dystopias do bad things to my head).  And only then did she say “Well of course one or the other musicians heard and was influenced by the other” and I had to explain that this was pretty near impossible.  

So either Phideaux had access to unreleased outtakes from Pink World long before the rest of the world did, or they both were influenced by a third song I haven’t heard, or it’s just a really cool coincidence.  But she did confirm that the connection I heard between the two wasn’t just in my head.  (I don’t know much about music except intuitively, so when I have music questions I ask people like her.)

Oh BTW if you really really hate Tony Carey/Planet P Project, that’s fine, just ignore my posts about them.  For some reason it seems to often be a “love it or hate it” thing.  I love it, one of my brothers loves it, my other brother can’t stand it and wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole and can’t understand what the other two of us see in it.  And my friends are just as polarized.

[Note:  This post won’t be possible to understand without the post after it, too.  I can’t post two videos in one post, or I’d do that instead.  Definitely listen to the song on this post first before you listen to the one on the next post, if you’re going to listen to them at all.]

So sometimes I notice weird connections between different songs, connections that sometimes seem like they really shouldn’t be there.  This is one of such a pair of songs.  What’s remarkable about it to me is that it’s not just the sound of the songs that seems as if they were meant to go together, but also the themes in the songs are remarkably similar as well.  

Thing is, there’s no possible way that one of the songs could have influenced another.  Basically what happened, was another song (”The Red Door”) was written but never published, a long time ago, probably the mid-eighties (it sounds like an unreleased outtake from “Pink World”, and the visual image of a red door in a music video from another song on the album -- in fact, the last music video I posted -- seems to confirm this).  Then this song (“Candybrain”) was written, and published in 2007.  Then “The Red Door” was eventually released, but only in 2008.  So “The Red Door” was written first, but “Candybrain” could not have been influenced by “The Red Door”.

I’m playing them in this order, though, “Candybrain” first, because they just work better in this order.  Like if you put them one after another on a playlist, “Candybrain” and then “The Red Door”, they practically flow into each other and tell one story, and even the bells at the end of one and the beginning of the other fit together well.

This isn’t the only two songs by these two bands that fit together weirdly like this, either.  (I’ll post another pair after I post this pair.)  Also there was a time period when both Planet P Project and Phideaux were simultaneously working on entirely separately-conceptualized trilogies of concept albums dealing with authoritarianism and environmental disaster, and they both often involve sci-fi and dystopian themes, although they diverged pretty greatly other than that.  (Aside from a couple songs that fit together so well I can’t hear one without thinking of the other, but more on that in a couple posts.)

Anyway here’s the lyrics since as usual there’s no captioning:

The sisters of illusion Sell delusion at the show It is said they've wed for wisdom If it kissed them, they wouldn't even know Still the marchers walk beside them Inclined to agree: "If it's written we believe It will come, you'll see"

La, la la

La, la la

La, la la

The converts come together They're gathered to begin And they swear their oaths forever Slip chips down into the skin So the keepers are inside them Provide them what they need To transmit and to receive When they're in, they don't leave

La, la la

(The convent is waiting it's time to go in)

La, la la

(Gather the faithful let vespers begin)

La, la la

La-la-la la la la

La-la la la

la la la la

(...and this is what they say)