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Devil In A Falling Sky

from Devil In A Falling Sky by Pierce Murphy

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about

Written for the Arvada Center's One Sheet exhibition.

I sometimes find the songs I write have outpaced me. That I'm trying to keep up with them as they race forward, regardless of whether or not I'm on board. It's usually a lyric thing. Like I get these words, fully formed, and it takes my little monkey brain some time to really understand the implications.

This song was one of those. The imagery is pretty stark. Less cryptic than I usually come up with. But the way all the images related was a little more opaque. The devil the narrator imagines isn't there, it's only him when the light turns on in the middle of the night. Someone tries to hide her tears, even though the narrator knows full well that they're there. The hell they occupy is gilded. There's a deep defiance toward their reality, a loathing almost.

I initially thought it was a song about climate change or abortion rights, with all it's snarling deity cursing, but I came to realize that the protagonist in this story (not unlike Paradise Lost), a Devil, is us. Humanity. We're raging against the things we have inherited, destroying the happiness and well being of anything else perfectly contented to follow the path before it. Ambition is a killer, I think. And that's hard to contend with.

So while it sounds triumphant, unbowed, and dignified, I think the long view of the protagonist is less flattering. It's hubris that's giving him that fire. And though he may defeat his station, he's gonna create more tears than he already has.

lyrics

I don't sleep through the night
Haven't been for a while
These twisted dreams

And I turn on the light
To catch a Devil run wild
But it's only me

A ghost drifts by
Hold her so tight
Like a final breath

If this is all God gives me
If this is all I hope to know
I'll drag it out to the sea
Throw it back, let it go
Cus I'm not willing to
Live any life that don't compare
To what we've dreamed of here

You were with me one night
Hiding tears in your eyes
Like I couldn't tell

And you stood on the shore
Said, "there's got to be more,
Thank some gilded hell."

And it drifts by
Like the last sight
Of a sky that fell

If this is all God gives me
If this is all I hope to know
I'll drag it out to the sea
Throw it back, let it go
Cus I'm not willing to
Live any life that don't compare
To what we've dreamed of here

If this is all God gives me
He can keep it for himself
I got a love that wont be
Settling for anything else

If this is all God gives me
If this is all I hope to know
I'll drag it out to the sea
Throw it back, let it go
Cus I'm not willing to
Live any life that don't compare
To what we've dreamed of here

credits

from Devil In A Falling Sky, released August 26, 2022
Music and lyrics by Pierce Murphy

Vocals/guitar - Pierce Murphy
Bass - Brendan O'Donoghue
Drum set - Collin Sitgreaves

Engineered by Pierce Murphy

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Pierce Murphy Denver, Colorado

I'm a guitarist/vocalist from Denver, CO. I like jazz and I like to groove and I like to stick it to the man.

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