I'M HERE AGAIN TO BOTHER YOU
may I have. Some songs. And lyrics. You'd like to associate with my son thank you (no need to reply to this it's fine I just love overanalyzing over lyrics)
I LOVE ANALYZING LYRICS TOO POOKIE, BOTHER ME ANYTIME, I need a break from reading a textbook. On US politics. And it’s an online textbook so I can’t feel the paper and engage myself. My brain is melting
In my mind, THE Faust song would be “I’m Your Man” by Mitski. I said it in my last Faust post and I’ll say it again *grabs and shakes you* DOG SYMBOLISM. Faust, when he finds reason to invest himself in somebody, can’t do such a thing in small measure. He puts his entire being into it to the point where he risks destroying himself. He sees Will as his salvation; by being the kind of person for Will that he could’ve used long ago, he can save him, and by this logic, save himself. This comes across perfectly in those opening lines: “You’re an angel, I’m a dog / Or you’re a dog and I’m your man / You believe me like a God / I betray you like I am.”
And in the Hannibal verse for him, if Will marries Molly as per the canon in S3, Faust feels abandoned not only by Hannibal post-S2, but now Will, too. And yet he can’t detach himself from those relationships. He can’t make himself forget. (Fic spinoff plan go brrrrr) Look me in the eyes and tell me this isn’t that:
My Mitski propaganda is going strong with our son
The second song I’m picking for lyrical relevance to Faust’s character is “The Man Who Sold the World” originally written and performed by David Bowie, though my preferred version is the Nirvana cover—either works, however. This song is just the essence of Faust and works for any verse, Hannibal verse included, of course. The lyrics make me think of his relationship with the man who taught him to hunt in his time of need, then turned on Faust, leading Faust to kill and cannibalize him, thus symbolically turning him into the hunter:
“We passed upon the stair / We spoke of was and when / Although I wasn't there / He said I was his friend
Which came as some surprise / I spoke into his eyes / ‘I thought you died alone / A long, long time ago’
‘Oh no, not me / I never lost control / You're face to face / With the man who sold the world.’”
This first half of the song, to me, is the beginning of their arrangement and leading up to the end, in which Faust consumes the hunter and feeds him to his group, which, again, symbolically represents his own Becoming (think Matthew in S2 saying “I’ll be the Chesapeake Ripper now” and Hannibal’s reply of “You’ll have to eat me”):
“I laughed and shook his hand / And made my way back home / I searched for form and land / For years and years, I roamed
I gazed a gazeless stare / At all the millions here / We must have died alone / A long, long time ago
Who knows? Not me / We never lost control / You're face to face / With the man who sold the world (x2)”
NEXT UP (yes I’m still blabbing I really hate that textbook) “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. Once again, it’s a song that I feel describes Faust’s relationship with Will and Hannibal very well, and I think the lyrics could be taken either way. Faust wants to be Will’s savior, yet he ALSO views Will as his own savior. With Hannibal, I’d imagine he feels saved in some sense by Hannibal’s understanding and acceptance of the darker parts of him:
“Reach out, touch faith / Your own personal Jesus / Someone to hear your prayers / Someone who cares / Your own personal Jesus / Someone to hear your prayers / Someone who's there”
This song is the side of Faust with the good old savior complex.
The last song I’m going to analyze by lyrics is “The Yawning Grave” by Lord Huron and then I’ll just drop a few Faust songs that just seem fitting to me :D
“The Yawning Grave” describes through its lyrics and eerie tone what can only be described as a supernatural situation, as well as a general message of “you shouldn’t meddle with things you cannot understand” WHICH IS VERY FAUST.
“I know the rain like the clouds know the sky / I speak to birds and tell them where to fly / I sing the songs that you hear on the breeze / I write the names of the rocks and the trees
Oh, you fool, there are rules I am coming for you / (You can run but you can’t escape) / Darkness brings evil things, oh, the reckoning begins / (You have opened the yawning grave)
I tried to warn you when you were a child / I told you not to get lost in the wild / I sent omens and all kinds of signs / I taught you melodies, poems, and rhymes”
Once again, this feels reminiscent of Faust’s dynamic with the hunter, and it represents his own hunger for knowledge and how dangerous it is.
For some extra general Faust songs, No Return by Anna Waronker, Eat Your Young by Hozier, and Everybody Wants to Rule the World (original version or Lorde version but Lorde pops off with the creepy vocals). Ok I disappear into the void of education now