i'll believe in anything by wolf parade is the most trinity santos song to ever trinity santos.
i'm not gonna do every lyric, but here are the ones that i think about the most:
Give me your eyes, I need sunshine - because she sees the world so negatively, and needs an optimistic outlook (dennis)
Your blood, your bones / Your voice and your ghost - the best friend that she lost, and the best friend she found in dennis
more under the line !! because i started yapping more than i thought i would lolsies (please do keep reading)
If I could take the fire out from the wire / I'd share a life and you'd share a life - the sacrifices she makes (which will relate to another lyric also), especially with dennis and how much trauma(?) she had to overcome in order to trust him and let him stay with her (sharing a life)
I'd take you where nobody knows you / And nobody gives a damn - because of how much she wants to escape, and how much she's disassociating this season, it feels like escapism and a lack of wanting to be percieved
then here comes the whopper:
And I could take another hit for you - taking the blame for mohan's mistake
And I could take away your drips for you - reporting langdon and saving him from his drug addiction
And I could take away the salt from your eyes - when she's comforting her patients
And take away what's been assaulting you - when she's taking care of young, vulnerable patients, and making sure they're okay (the kid with the sexually abusive dad)
And I could give you my apologies / By handing over all the olive trees - taking blame and punishment all the time and accepting it because she doesn't want to hurt people or stir up (more) trouble
And I could take away your shaky knees / And I could give you all the olive trees / But look at the trees and look at my face / Then look at a place far away from here - more of the same, more of how selfless and caring she is, while still touching on her dissociation and escapism feelings
all of that adds up to what she does for others, without mentioning what others do for her, because for the most part, they don't. she needs help, because she doesn't leave any for herself, she just gives it to others. but because of how she is perceived as a very tough person, no one thinks to check in on her, and they really need to!!
there is one lyric that i purposely didn't include, and that is 'i'll believe in anything', because, despite being the title of the song, i don't think it suits her. she won't believe in anything, because that would be unsafe for her. she can't take away her boundaries and unconscious biases because they've been built up through and in the aftermath of trauma. she can't believe in anything because going against what she currently believes in means accepting defeat and that her past doesn't mean anything. (while i don't necessarily believe that, that's what i think she would believe).
santos loves and cares for people so intensely, at the expense of her own livelihood, and without people loving and caring for her in return. she so desperately wants to, needs to, believe in anything, but she can't.
idc that this is a trending song, it just means so much to me, and i think of her whenever i listen to it.
Hide and seek by imogen heap is such an andriel song, SPECIFICALLY a Baltimore andriel song let me present my case.
Starting strong with the very first lines:
Where are we? What the hell is going on? The dust has only just begun to form crop circles in the carpet. Sinking feeling…
Andrew POV, Neil disappears and what the fuck is his bag doing on the ground? Where did he go? What the fuck is happening? He’s only just started to trust, to let himself care, and now Neil is gone and his keys are on the ground and oh no something is very wrong.
Next lines paint the picture of his rising anxiety and rage. The feeling has sunk, and now it’s hitting that holy shit this is happening what the fuck what the fuck:
Spin me around again, and rub my eyes. This can’t be happening. When busy streets a mess with people would stop to hold their heads heavy.
Now he’s starting to panic, now it’s hitting, and holy shit this can’t be happening. He just started to let himself care, and it’s ripped from him again, and no one notices. The world spins around him and the people keep going, and his collapses again. And that pisses him the fuck off.
Now if I were an editor, these next lines are more Neil focused, I’d be throwing in many “on the run” clips:
Hide and seek. Trains and sewing machines. All those years, they were here first.
This is Neil’s life in three lines. Always running always hiding, hide and seek. Trains and sewing machines calls to mind running and mending, stitching skin back together as well as his own clothes. Life on the run. That life caught up to him, and they were here first, Andrew was never supposed to happen. It was always going to catch up to him, it was always going to end this way. They were always going to win.
Now we’re back to Andrew focus on the next verse:
Oily marks appear on walls, where pleasure moments hung before the takeover. The sweeping insensitivity of this still life.
He never forgets anything. He never misses anything, so how did he miss this? Hindsight is 20/20 so now he’s searching his memory for any indication of something being off, and now every moment he spent with Neil is colored with a lie. Because Neil is a liar, and Neil kept lying, and he should have known something was up. How dare he trust again, how dare he let this happen. How dare he expect life to be anything more than the bottom of the barrel he’s never left. Sweeping insensitivity. Still life.
The next chorus is neil again, but it’s Andrew’s realization of it, and he’s so angry. If I were an editor, the crescendo of the music would coincide with choking answers out of Kevin, and dashboard lighters and knives:
Hide and seek. Trains and sewing machine. Blood and tears, they were here first.
In a way, this is both of them. Neil’s life, his past and his present. Blood snd tears, they were here first. Those are his first memories, blood and tears. Kevin is spilling his guts and Andrew fucking gets it, because aren’t those his first memories too? Neil is somewhere dead or tortured, he got found. And it was always going to be this way. Even still, he will not give up easily, and he will find Neil, even if he’s finding a corpse.
The bridge is Andrew’s response to Neil:
What’d you say, that you only meant well? Well of course you did. What’d you say, that it’s all for the best? Of course it is. What’d you say, that it’s just what we need? You decided this. What’d you say? What did she say?
This is Andrew’s response to “thank you, you were amazing.” In Neil’s goodbye was everything he couldn’t say, and now Andrew knows it. Of course you fucking meant well, of course you’d say this is for the best. But you decided this, you fucking decided this, I didn’t.
I think the last two lines can go back to Neil, and now he’s thinking of Mary, and you know maybe Andrew is too. Because it’s Mary’s voice in Neil’s head that tells him to run, but now he can’t run anymore, and he has to do something. He can’t let them get to his teammates, so he goes with them. If she were alive, what would she say? What did she say? Not this. Never this. She never wanted it. That’s a bit of a narrative side tangent so let’s get back to the last bit of the song.
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth, mid sweet talk, newspaper word cutouts. Speak no feeling, no, I don’t believe you. You don’t care a bit, you don’t care a bit.
These lines repeat twice, before the last two keep repeating at the end. This is the most Andrew POV of Neil I have ever fucking heard are you kidding me? Holy shit, ransom notes!!!! No feeling!!!! These lines take us through the rest of that night and then their reunion. Speak no feeling, I can’t believe you, you don’t care. I can’t let you care. Because here you are, newspaper cut out boy, cut up boy. Who are you?
Retrospect, reading between the lines he was too stupid to pay attention to, too busy looking at the lips speaking the words. Every memory clear as if it was the present, how many notes fell out of that mouth while he wasn’t looking? How many lies?
Now he’s here, you have him back, and he wants to stay. He wants you, and yet he still won’t touch you, how can this be real? You don’t care, no one has ever cared for me. You don’t care, how could you do such a stupid thing if you cared? You don’t care, how could you ever care for me? His entire world was already changing before Neil was ever taken. And then in one night it shattered. Neil left. Neil was gone. But then he came back, and he came back broken, and he still cared.
That isn’t something he can wrap his head around, not yet, and the song ends with that repetition, as if he’s trying to convince himself of something he already knows isn’t true.
And honestly you can put this likes back to Neil too, because Neil still didn’t think Andrew actually cared about him, and it was still worth it. He was still worth it.
You don’t care a bit, but I do. You don’t have to care, it’s okay.
I present to you, "As It Was" as I see it because of synesthesia, complete with a dissection of how it came together! This song is fantastic, and I am so excited for the rest of the album!
Personal Breakdown of Swan Upon Leda, Stanza by Stanza
Disclaimer: this analysis is entirely personal opinion. If you have a different interpretation that's great! In fact, I'd love to hear your interpretations of the song. Anyway, analysis time:
A husband waits outside
A crying child pushes a child into the night
She was told he would come this time
Without leaving so much as a feather behind
To enact at last the perfect plan
One more sweet boy to be butchered by man
This tells the story of a child anywhere from 5 - 17 being forced to birth her rapists baby.
The first line mentions a husband, which can be interpreted as the child's husband - child brides are very common in a lot of places - or it could be the child's father, the husband of the child's mother. I personally think the first scenario is more likely.
The next lines mention that she was told she wouldn't be raped this time. Emphasis on the this time. The feather is a reference to the swan that raped Leda, which is how we know the child being born is a result of rape. In my opinion, this child bride was raped by her husband before they were married and, since her virtue was ruined, she was forced to marry him. Her family promised he would not rape her again, but he did and she became pregnant. This was the husband's "perfect plan." He would rape her, which forced her to marry him, and then rape her again to trap her in the marriage with a baby. The last line tells us that the baby was born male. He will grow up to be "butchered by men" likely meaning his father will be abusive or that he will grow up to be exactly like his father.
But the gateway to the world
Was still outside the reach of him
What never belonged to angels
Had never belonged to man
The swan upon Leda
Empire upon Jerusalem
The "gateway to the world," in my mind, refers to the female reproductive system. It has always been out of reach to this "him." He can't produce a child on his own so he rapes women to access the "gateway to the world."
The next bit, "what never belonged to angels had never belonged to man" is so personal to me. The bit about angels can be a reference to so many things. The angel can be Zeus raping Leda. The angel can be the Christian God forcing 13 year old Mary to carry Jesus. The angel is a representation of how women are treated mythologically. The thing that never belonged to these angels is, of course, the female body. The next line states that the female body has never belonged to men. To me, the greater implication is that men have taken their examples from the "angels." They think they're owed the female body because the gods took it as they pleased.
The next two lines are comparison lines. The swan is upon Leda like how the kingdom of Jerusalem has been historically and biblically conquered over and over and over again. This line does, however, imply that women are holy. We are sacred ground in the same way Jerusalem is - we are holy.
A grandmother smugglin' meds
Past where the god child-soldier
Setanta stood dead
A graceful turner of heads
Weaves through the checkpoints like a needle and the thread
Someone’s frightened boy waves her on
She offers a mother’s smile and soon she’s gone
The first line is pretty self explanatory: an old woman is smuggling medication, likely some sort of contraception or abortion pills. She could also be smuggling abortifacients - things that cause miscarriages such as mugwort.
The next part is more confusing to those of us who aren't Irish. Setanta is an Irish mythological figure, but his importance here doesn't come from his mythos. Setanta has been used by Irish nationalists ad a symbol for a unified Ireland. The knowledge that the grandmother is sneaking things past Setanta implies that she's bringing the medicine from Southern Ireland into Northern Ireland, where the abortion laws are stricter.
Hozier next describes the grandmother going through the checkpoints into Northern Ireland. She does this by being a graceful turner of heads. My impression is that she's using her beauty to distract the people checking her so she can get the medicine through. If you've ever read the Witcher books, there's a scene where Yennefer makes herself more beautiful so that people will look at her and not at Ciri, who is supposed to be dead. That was the first thing I associated with the "graceful turner of heads" line.
Beyond just beauty though, the grandmother is using her status as a weapon. She's just a sweet old lady, she wouldn't do anything wrong. To me, this is a reference to how women are often seen as too pure, too innocent, too submissive and obedient to cause issues. The grandmother knows she's viewed this way and uses it to her advantage.
The next line is a simple interaction. She has someone on the inside that helps with her smuggling operation. This boy, maybe one of the people working the checkpoints, maybe a police officer, or maybe just a young boy, helps the grandmother navigate to the people she needs to deliver the medication too.
The important thing about the boy is that he too is someone who is not suspected to be involved in the smuggling of abortifacients because he's a boy. Men as a societal class are rarely involved in the fight for women's rights. This boy will not be a main suspect if the smuggling is uncovered - and that is why he's doing it and not a young woman.
The gateway to the world
The gun in a trembling hand
Where nature unmakes the boundary
The pillar of myth still stands
The swan upon Leda
Occupier upon ancient land
This last verse is a slightly altered version of the chorus. The gateway to the world is, as we previously discussed, the female reproductive system. This time, however, there's a gun. This gun is likely the result of being denied an abortion. The woman has no way to stop the birth no - no way except an at home abortion. Perhaps she's horribly depressed, as people tend to be when they're pregnant with a rapists child. Whatever the reason, this woman has decided suicide is the answer. She will have an abortion by killing herself.
The next two lines, "where nature unmakes the boundary, the pillar of myth still stands," is about the fight for women's rights. We - women - are the "nature." We are unmaking the boundaries that men have placed upon us and our bodies. The pillar of myth, however, still stands in our way. This pillar of myth is, of course, the religious arguments that stop abortion access.
The last line of the song, "occupier upon ancient land" is very direct. Hozier is calling women an occupied nation, an oppressed people.
MUSICALITY ANALYSIS:
Swan Upon Leda is a very soft song, which doesn't seem to match the material. This is an incredibly angry song, but it's sung like a lullaby. To me, this is an incredibly important aspect of the song.
The first important thing about the softness is that it's a representation of female rage, in my opinion. Historically and still today, women are expected to carry themselves with dignity. Anger is not a dignified emotion. Angry women must often stay silent or soft to protect themselves. We don't have the privilege of a screaming match with men that hurt us because that might make them hurt us more. Our anger is, by necessity, a quiet affair.
The other important thing about the softness of the song is that it sounds like a lullaby. I think this has a few meanings. First of all, lullabies call babies to mind which is very fitting for a song about abortion. The second thing is that, to me, the lullaby implies that women inherit the grief of being occupied. Even the small, female baby listening to this lullaby understands the rage inside it. We are born with this quiet rage. It is our lullaby, the thing that lulls us to sleep.
let's break down Just One Yesterday by Fall Out boy from a Hotchreid perspective!
say it with me: mean hotch! mean hotch! mean hotch!
(mean hotch kinda turned into straight-up abusive hotch so I'm gonna put some trigger warnings)
tw: physical/emotional abuse tw: manipulation also nsfw 18+
"I thought of angels choking on their halos Get them drunk on rose water"
Hotch gets Spencer drunk after a hard case. Under the pretense that they're just going to wind-down and have a nice dinner at his place. He has Spencer let his guard down, and Spencer is so pure, sweet, delicate, Hotch is obsessed.
Hotch sees Spencer as an innocent angel that he wants to corrupt. Wants to hurt him and see how easily he can get bruise. How easy is he to unravel? He wants to take him apart piece by piece.
He takes Spencer to bed, the angel comes willingly.
"See how dirty I can get them pulling out their fragile teeth And clip their tiny wings."
Theres a bit of an obsession with innocence, and 'fragile teeth/tiny wings' suggests that Spencer's innocence is surface-level. A desperate facade to keep the ugly scary trauma away.
Hotch knows there's something dar underneath the surface and he's insatiable.
Hotch slowly strips Spencer of his clothes, tests the waters to see how well Spencer will listen and take orders. He's perfectly malleable.
"Anything you say can and will be held against youSo only say my name, it will be held against you"
Hotch wants Spencer to be irrevocably his. This is power, possession, ownership. Spencer can't have and doesn't WANT anyone else in his life, Hotch is the only one who can make him feel good.
'it will be held against you' If Spencer disobeys there will be consequences. Spencer doesn't understand how much Hotch does for him every day. He needs Hotch. He belongs to Hotch.
It's fitting for two FBI agents. They always have cuffs on hand. Spencer is handcuffed and taken apart until the only thing he can think of is Hotch Hotch Hotch.
Hotch growls these lines in Spencer's ear. No other thoughts are allowed, Hotch. It's possessive bliss.
"If heaven’s grief brings hell’s rain Then I’d trade all them tomorrows for just one yesterday"
Hurting Spencer is what gives Hotch any sense of peace. Inflicting pain on Spencer is what cools down Hotch's fiery rage. Hotch's little angel, corrupted, crying, beaten, his.
The routine of hurting Spencer and knowing he won't get any resistance is thrilling. But...
Hotch knows what he's doing. He knows this thing with Spencer won't end well. Spencer will realize sooner or later that Hotch is sick, that what they're doing isn't normal.
So if he could go back to before all of this fucked up manipulation started... to before Haley and Foyet, before Hankel and Maeve... when Spencer was happy, when what he felt was just a crush, when he would daydream about taking Spencer on dinner dates and showering him with little gestures...
He would. He would take that over watching this relationship's downfall. Spencer's downfall. Because he knows he won't stop until he breaks this kid into dusty fragments of a person.
"I know I'm bad news, I saved it all for you"
In the song, this is from the other person in the relationship's perspective, but I see it as both Hotch and Spencer.
Spencer's never felt like an angel. Despite all the times Hotch has called him his 'perfect angel'.
Spencer sees himself the way Hotch sees himself, at least at the beginning. He's no good, tainted, fucked up. He enters this relationship ready to unleash all his destruction on Hotch, ready for Hotch to see how broken he already is.
For Hotch, Spencer is the only one for him. In that sense they are compatible, they both want the worst from each other.
"I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way Still I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday"
When Spencer takes his vest off, disobeys direct orders, puts himself in danger, Hotch loses it. What the hell would Hotch do if Spencer died? He would fall apart. Spencer needs to be put in his place, needs to be punished. Spanked, used, denied.
Hotch breaks Spencer is the best ways. 'You belong to me' repeated like a mantra. 'You answer to me' 'You only have me'.
He makes Spencer repeat these back to him. Any sentence that doesn't end in 'Sir' earns him a slap to the face. It's thrilling.
Spencer eats, sleeps, works, on Hotch's time. What Hotch says goes. There's no room for a single independent thought. That genius brain of his is good for two things, solving cases and thinking about Hotch. And Spencer thrives on it.
"Letting people down is my thing, baby, find yourself a new gig This town ain’t big enough for two of us. I don’t have the right name or the right looks But I have twice the heart"
Hotch knows he's not good enough for Spencer. He's too old, he's his boss, it's not right. He wants Spencer to run away, but would never let him go. but He knows he's beyond fixing, he's accepted that he's a horrible person. He goes with it.
Hotch has... a heart. In tender kisses after a rough fuck, a proud smile when Spencer does something right, the quiet ‘I love you’ after a nightmare, he wants to give love.
But he can't give love the way he knows he needs to. He's just as lost as Spencer. In a way they’re both in the same boat. They clash in just the right ways to keep them needing each other.
"If I spilled my guts The world would never look at you the same way And now I’m here to give you all of my love So I can watch your face as I take it all away"
This is from Spencer's perspective. Spencer is a genius for Christ's sake, he knows what he's gotten himself into. If the truth about their relationship came out, it would ruin the both of them.
Spencer does love Hotch. Always has, that's why it was so easy to submit, to let himself be taken by the older man. But he knows he still has one string he can pull to unravel the older man completely, and that's guilt.
He could give Hotch everything, and take it away in a second by making him feel guilty. But Spencer doesn't want to. He's at home here, under Hotch's constant gaze.
so our boys are a bit cuckoo huh? if you know me you know I love a broken Spencer, but in this case he’s broken by choice and I love that even more.
let me know your thoughts and how you’d interpret the song I’d love to hear about it 😇 (also I’m too tired to proofread so deal with my mistakes)
What inspired the lyrics for your beautiful song Changeling?
Changeling was inspired by my own experience as an autistic person, though in a more fantastical and exaggerated way. Changeling myths began as a result of people not understanding their disabled and neurodivergent children, mistaking differences in behavior as signs of possession or a human child being replaced by a fairy child. It’s morbid, but I’ve always been interested in Changelings since I heard about them as a child. I have a lot of experiences of feeling like an outsider growing up, being very different than my family and the other people I knew. These experiences finally made sense to me only as an adult after researching ASD and realizing where I fit on the spectrum, so the song reflects that experience.
I’m really happy to see in the tags of the song how many autistic people related to it, even without me saying that’s what it was about. :) I’m also happy that allistic people could listen and relate to it as well! Because everyone’s felt like an outsider at some point, and I wrote it for all of us. But yeah, that’s what it was about.
This dissection was so fun! This is "Solar Power" by Lorde, as I see it because of synesthesia! Huge thank you to my Patrons for voting to have me dissect this!
