#greenestcoat

(Listen if a joke is funny the first time it’s funny every time.)

Okay, so level one: analysis separate from any other piece of work. This is where you look at the art (in this case song lyrics) and examine it purely on its own merit, not by looking at background or connection to other texts. If we just look at the lyrics, what do they say and what do they mean?

PART THE FIRST

Unlike Marbles, which tells us a very easy-to-follow story of a relationship, even giving us a handy-dandy year of meeting (I’ve held your hand since 1979), Battle Cries doesn’t give us solid details to fix on. We have to fill in the blanks a lot, which is obviously deliberate given that Marbles and Little Miss Why So (from their previous album Love Run) have shown us that the band knows how to be specific and grounding in telling us a story. If they’ve left things abstract, it’s on purpose.

From the very first lyric, we’re shown two people at odds, as they sing wildly different words:

“I’m at the brink, don’t laugh,

at the winks I’ve masked.”

vs.

“The wrinkles and bricks that we’re left with at last,”

They’re even singing at a different pace from one another. The man is more upbeat, faster, and his notes go up and down. The woman is slower, more deliberate, and her notes are closer together. This pattern continues through the song - the man is all over the scale and moves faster, the woman is slower and her voice stays even.

The central conflict here seems to be over the singers differing on what they feel is important, culminating in, “we were gods” vs “we were kids.” We have references to specific events where the signers acknowledge that they understand one another, even if they don’t agree:

“You’ve a knack For applause from the back of the stalls but you lack The conviction to look at me straight and say yes”

vs

“Some fictions we took to mean fate believe me I know”

and

“Tell the truth to me love, does my hair look as nice As it did when you once tied it up in your eyes? Look at me as you say this, don’t look at your phone.”

There are continued references to things that they’ve done, such as “but we sunk into water...” and “our devils broke ranks, and out of the depths came an army.” They’ve been through a lot together, these two people, and most of it is metaphorical, you assume... but there’s also the theme of playing pretend, making believe, with repeated references to devils, kings, monsters, pirates, and all the rest. The line between fiction and reality is blurred strongly here, as we’ve seen in their other songs like That Unwanted Animal.

The woman appears to be a performer, since the man sings that she “dragged us along to watch all of your shows.” The man could be a performer, but he refused: “and by God, love, believe me, I wanted to play, too, I did.”

The lyrics the woman sings imply that she throws herself into things wholeheartedly while the man holds himself back - which has become a problem, given the lyrics they’re singing at each other. This is ironic because the woman’s lyrics might imply that, but her voice is the more deliberate and grounded one, while the man, the one singing the lyrics that imply holding himself back, is the one with his voice jumping all over the place.

The woman embraces her power and lack of restraint and proclaims we were gods. The man acknowledges that they were young and lost and didn’t know what they were doing, reminding her we were kids.

And both of them are right.

They’re also both constantly trying to counsel each other. A good moment that highlights their differing views is here:

Done with your dreams, they won’t last Thirty winters will pass, you’ll look back at the woman fifty year old you will be proud to have known.

vs

Cos that sun that beams down as my hands touch the grass After summers of fasting I feel hunger at last For the person fifteen year old me would be proud to have known.

One of them is putting aside dreams, and looking towards the future and saying, I want to be someone that future me is proud of.

The other, however, is focusing on how they feel in the present moment, on how they feel alive (this lyric of feeling hunger at last is also possibly a callback to Wild Blue Yonder’s “tried my best to get thinner” and Farewell Wanderlust’s “when your mom says ‘you look healthy’ but you know she means you got fat”) and saying, I want to be someone my teenage self would admire.

This also highlights how the woman seems detached from reality. She’s all about make-believe, dreams, the future. The man is more focused on the here and now, the past, what was and what is. And again, neither person is wrong here. But their differences are bringing them into conflict as seen from different lyrics and rhythms.

But there is, however, a lack of goodbye. The lyrics show an understanding of one another, and there are moments where they share the same lyrics. The line, “this isn’t a break up, dear heart, it’s a season finale” is very telling because it’s a season finale.

Season vs. series, real quick - series means the entire end of a show. Not coming back. It’s the final ending. But season? That just means it’s time for a break. We’ll be back. It’s a conclusion of an arc but not the conclusion of a story.

So the couple isn’t saying goodbye forever. They’re just saying this is the end of one arc. One part of the story. And now we’re taking a pause, and then we’re going to tell the rest, be the rest, presumably together. Especially because just previous to this the woman said she’s not leaving without a fight, and the man said he’s not going to let her turn their last night into this. They’re not going to be gone from each other forever.

In fact, one could (if one was so inclined) call this one of the fights that the couple from Marbles had. Both songs have a very similar feel to them. So you could very well view it that way. This isn’t a look at the story of an entire relationship, this is a look at one specific part of it. And again, this isn’t a painful breakup song. We see that in the chorus:

But that breathing you hear don't mistake it for sighs, Don’t you realize - They’re just battle cries, dear. And these lines aren’t wrinkles, dear heart. (Hardly knew the words) They’re just dollops of paint on a new work of art! (I’m dolled up love don’t I deserve to just) And as I walk away I know, I’ve been through the wars, But that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause.

There’s no pain. There’s no sighing. No screams. Not wrinkles for age. There’s an embracing of it all, a joy found in things that might otherwise cause sadness. It’s saying don’t worry, this is all good. But there’s nothing about goodbye, it’s more “look at what I’ve been through and I’m glad of it, I’m okay with it.”

I also think it’s telling that the song ends with just one singer performing.

All it took to unearth in the dust and the dirt Some release or respite from the heat and the hurt Was taking the time now and then to ask how I am And now at the end, at the end of all things, I’m not going to scream, beat my chest at the wind, I’m doing fine.

That’s a callback to The Rockrose and the Thistle, both lyrically and in how the singer’s performing it (his voice is almost exactly the same, quick, someone compare the musical notes for me).

Basically, yes, there is a sense of something ending, but it’s not The End. The end of university was not the end of your life. The end of childhood was not an end to your life. And so on. It feels more like the end of a phase - both in this couple’s relationship (but again, season finale, I don’t think it’s the end of their relationship completely) - and in their lives. They’re phasing out of a certain stage. But the lyrics say explicitly “this isn’t a breakup” and we need to trust that.

I think, looking at these lyrics, that Battle Cries is about facing the end of a certain period of your life, whatever that period is, and embracing both the frustrating and the wonderful about it, and looking at both your own flaws and the flaws of your partner, and maybe needing to take a break - but knowing that it’s not the end, and that you’re going to be okay. It’s about self-reflection as well as reflecting on a relationship. It’s taking a small step back and observing yourself from a slight distance. Getting philosophical with a bottle of wine.

Basically this feels like the end of act two, not the end of the entire play. Does that make sense? Am I making sense to anyone?

However, that is just the FIRST LAYER of analysis. There are two more. Because just one layer of meaning would be too simple, apparently, for a certain British bastard. Not naming names here, mostly because I don’t need to, we all know what life-ruining motherfucker I’m referring to.

So, the second level here is not Battle Cries as a song on its own, but Battle Cries as the final song on an album.

PART THE SECOND

The Amazing Devil did this with their previous album, Love Run, as well. They’re fond of using the first song as an introduction that lulls you into a false sense of security and using the final song as not just a culmination of all the other songs on the album but as a callback. Not Yet/Love Run on the same-titled album contains direct lyrics from the previous songs embedded into the background, and also serves as an emotional crescendo of all that the previous songs in the album were touching on (mainly depression, romantic relationships, and ‘what the fuck am I supposed to do now’).

With Battle Cries, we get the same thing.

First and easiest is double lyrics that sometimes conflict. We saw this in Wild Blue Yonder most predominantly, where the man was being the more dramatic of the two and the woman was kind of talking him down and being more pragmatic. Even though there’s not as much conflict in their lyrics as in Pruning Shears from Love Run, that conflict is still there - and is done, again, in Battle Cries.

There are also smaller, more specific lyrical callbacks:

“And these plates they smash like waves” = That Unwanted Animal (and these plates they smash like waves/throw the plate at the wall)

“And the wine stains hide the tears” = Farewell Wanderlust (but like rubbing wine stains into rugs it’s my curse, to try and make it right, but by trying make it worse)

“The wrinkles and bricks we’re left with at last” - Marbles (your eyes aren’t rivers there to weep but a place for crows to rest their feet) and Wild Blue Yonder (every brick you hurled I’ll use to build)

“But that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause” = That Unwanted Animal (and if we join our hands in prayer enough to God I imagine it all starts to sound like applause)

Aside from these direct lyrical callbacks, there’s the emotional tone.

In the very first song on the album, The Rockrose and the Thistle, we have the theme of helping someone - someone who might not necessarily be good at accepting your help. The lyrics, however brief, give the impression of night (when you call to me asleep) and a foreboding seaside (up the ragged cliffs I scramble).

In Battle Cries, we once again get lyrics that give us the impression of the seaside, through allusions to pirates (more on that in the third section). But instead of nighttime, and danger, the lyrics give us the impression of light and warmth:

“Now the wind is so warm on the back of my neck As I walk with the sun hand in hand from the wreck”

Wreck, again, suggests a shipwreck (most other acts of destruction we call crashes i.e. car crash, ‘wreck’ is almost exclusively used for ships) which suggests the ocean. But in TR&TT all is dark and uncertain, and it’s told from the point of view of the helper, who is trying to assist someone who’s struggling. In Battle Cries, we go from darkness to light, and it’s the point of view of the person being helped, saying that all they needed to feel better was having someone take “the time now and then to ask how I am.” We’ve gone full circle.

That final bit could also be a callback to Welly Boots, where the singer talks of someone “screaming far too loud to hear me swear” and running out into an impending thunderstorm. In Battle Cries, the line is,

“I’m not gonna scream, beat my chest at the wind. I’m doing fine.”

Again, a POV shift from a previous song to no longer be the person sung about, but the person doing the singing, and no longer in a position of distress, but a position of acceptance and moving forward.

Also if someone who like actually can talk about music as opposed to just lyrics could help me the fuck out here I know there are musical similarities between The Horror and the Wild and Battle Cries, and I’m pretty sure between Marbles and Battle Cries too, but I still can’t fucking read music and once described a note in a song to a friend as, “it sounds too Idina Menzel and you need to make it sound more Florence Welch” and so I am not the person to be discussing this but I FUCKIN’ KNOW THE SIMILARITIES ARE THERE I CAN FEEL IT I JUST DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO ARTICULATE IT.

Anyway.

So, Battle Cries is not only a standalone work but a culmination of the emotional journey that the album has taken you on. You’ve moved through songs about needing help and being unable to receive it/seeing someone you love needing help and being unable to give it (TR&TT, Welly Boots), songs about hiding from your demons and having a fun time being in a sexual relationship with someone you have to say goodbye to and move on from and while we’re at it let’s say “fuck it” (Wild Blue Yonder), to screaming about our failures and how people have failed us (Farewell Wanderlust, Welly Boots), to more sex and oh let’s throw spirituality and God in there (That Unwanted Animal), going full-on feral and taking on all comers (THATW) and then finding joy and the profound in the little moments with those we love without censorship or rose-colored glasses (Fair, Marbles).

Battle Cries is bittersweet not only because of its standalone lyrics but because it is embracing the bitter, wild fury of certain songs in the album and the sweet, soft love of the other songs. It’s combining them. And then, in its final moments, it’s taking a deep breath and releasing it all: “I’m doing fine.”

The band clearly chooses, with extreme care, the order in which their songs are to be played. While certain songs like Wild Blue Yonder and Pruning Shears could very well be the kind of songs you hear on the radio, and all the songs are good as standalones, there is an extra layer of emotional depth when you listen to them in the order the band intended. The number one thing people tell me when they listen to TAD for the first time is, “I get a musical feel. It reminds me of a particular kind of musical.” I’ve gotten a lot of comparisons to Hadestown, which, fun fact, started not as a musical but as a concept album in 2010. And I think that’s because people are picking up on the fact that the entire album is a journey that the listener is carefully being led on, and the final song draws it all together in a bittersweet, triumphant end note.

Not Yet/Love Run at the end of their last album did the same thing, which brings me to my final level of analysis: Battle Cries as the spiritual successor of Not Yet/Love Run.

PART THE THIRD

The first and most obvious comparison is the lyrics. In Not Yet, we have a theme of fighting an enemy and playing make-believe, being pirates:

“Sing me awake with a song about pirates,” “you point I’ll steer and we’ll rip up the map by the seems,” “it’s time to fight don’t be yellow bellied, hold the bar at Hurley's hurly burly's give ‘em hell give ‘em hell.”

In Battle Cries we have much the same thing:

“‘Come at me you blaggards’, you’d yell from the banks Wielding words against make-believe wizards and tanks”

There is a lyrical theme of pirate-speak and make believe, playing games. (In fact the next line in Battle Cries is “and by God, love, believe me, I wanted to play, too, I did,” referencing both playing make-believe and playing music.)

Not Yet and Battle Cries both blur the line between what is real and what is pretend, with the woman singer being much more willing to throw herself into imagination and the man being more cautious, more realistic. Both feature the woman in a fighting mood (“where is God, ma?”/“I won’t leave without a fight”) and the man more grounded and accepting (“I held your hand as you shook in the middle of the night”/“I’m not gonna scream, beat my chest at the wind”).

And both times, in both songs, both singers have a point. Neither one is fully right or wrong. That fighting spirit in the woman in good, but so is the acceptance and grounded attitude of the man.

Both Not Yet and Battle Cries also have the lyrical dance, where the man and woman sing different lyrics that overlap, and then occasionally come together and sing the same thing. It’s moments of understanding in between moments of disparity, which, really, isn’t that what every relationship is like? You’re never going to be in sync with your lover, friend, family member, all the time. But when you do come together, it’s fantastic.

Not Yet/Love Run is basically two songs in one, and so the Love Run portion is separate from the Not Yet portion in my analysis. Love Run is about fighting, but not fighting to get away from something, not fighting out of anger, but running towards something and fighting for love. There is, in Love Run, an acceptance that things can be shit, but we’re gonna keep running anyway:

“It’s not from what we run that drums, but what’s to come,” “run to show that love’s worth running to,” “though some would harm you, none, not one, no none, would raise to you, a hand nor thumb, not while by you I stand and hum.”

In Battle Cries, we get a similar acceptance and a reaffirmation that love, care, and compassion are what keeps us going:

“And as I walk away I know I’ve been through the wars, But that creaking you hear in my bones is not pain, it’s applause,”

“All it took to unearth in the dust and the dirt, Some release or respite from the heat and the hurt, Was taking the time now and then to ask how I am.”

Both Love Run and Battle Cries take the lyrics of their previous songs in the album and rework them, echo them, and then stand tall and say, “but it’s going to be okay, dear heart.” And Battle Cries emotionally and lyrically deliberately echoes Not Yet earlier on in its lyrics, and then emotionally (though not quite as lyrically) deliberately echoes Love Run at its end.

I could keep going on the details of this but this is fuckin’ long enough already and you all are smart people with an insane amount of time on your hands thanks to quarantine so I’m sure you guys can extrapolate further from here. Battle Cries plays the same role in THATW that Not Yet/Love Run plays in LR, therefore, there is a thematic and emotional similarity between both songs, therefore, lyrical comparisons and callbacks to Not Yet/Love Run were placed in Battle Cries.

IN CONCLUSION

This song is operating on three levels. It’s operating as a standalone piece of work, it’s operating as the culmination of a collection of work, and it’s operating as a successor/callback to the final piece in a previous collection of work by the same artists.

You’re going to find themes in the work of every artist, conscious and unconscious. I can tell you right now that my original novels have a strong theme of dreaming - dreams as power, dreams as prophecy, dreams as manifestation of our fears and our subconscious, dreams as escapism. It’s a theme I at first did subconsciously and now, as a writer with a better sense of self-awareness, one that I utilize consciously.

Good artists recognize their personal themes and turn them into leitmotifs. They harness what they’re already subconsciously expressing and wield it as a tool. It takes a very skilled artist to take those themes and use them the way TAD does with all of their work but especially with Battle Cries. There is a deliberate awareness of what they’re doing and the words they’re wielding. Battle Cries is an ending that knows it’s an ending in the best kind of way, one that says not all endings are bad, here, let us show you.