Drapery Falls Lyrics Interpretation?

[Soulreaper]

I was trying to figure out this song....but i have no clue
anyone has any suggestions regarding what this song is about?

I know it has been discussed before, but ppl didnt give it much thought...and the question was left as it was.

AND...if you have any other interpretaion for songs from BWP,
please write those as well!

Thanks

 

[Heir Apparent]

Sorry for brining up old topics lately. However I'm doing a short paper on a song analysis for my Anthropology class. I'm going on the idea that the song is about a relationship. I know in past interviews Mike has mentioned a few of the song where about his disgust for society. Do you guys have any ideas?

Lyrics:

Please remedy my confusion
And thrust me back to the day
The silence of your seclusion
Brings night into all you say
Pull me down again
And guide me into pain
I'm counting nocturnal hours
Drowned visions in haunted sleep
Faint flickering of your powers
Leaks out to show what you keep
Pull me down again
And guide me into
There is failure inside
This test I can't persist
Kept back by the enigma
No criterias demanded here
Deadly patterns made my wreath
Prosperous in your ways
Pale ghost in the corner
Pouring a caress on your shoulder
Puzzled by shrewd innocence
Runs a thick tide beneath
Ushered into inner graves
Nails bleeding from the struggle
It is the end for the weak at heart
Always the same
A lullaby for the ones who've lost all
Reeling inside
My gleaming eye in your necklace reflects
Stare of primal regrets
You turn your back and you walk away
Never again
Spiralling to the ground below
Like Autumn leaves left in the wake to fade
away
Waking up to your sound again
And lapse into the ways of misery

 

[GhostOfPudding]

DEADLY BADGERS MADE MY WREATH!!!

 

[Sisyphus's Struggle]

What amazes me of Blackwater Park (album) is that there’s a concept behind (im not saying a “history” or concept like MAYH or SL) and a strong parallel between some songs, all of them surrounded by a dark, bleak and disturbing atmosphere, where you can see different ways to face up the “forbidden” side of human existence (almost in a ying – yang or “parallel universe” way: Harvest, The Drapery Falls and Dirge For November represents different attitudes towards “death”, the choice that every character do).
The Drapery Falls, to me represents the end of a relationship, like the title says: The curtain that falls at the end of the act (an important part of the play). Being, in my opinion, Bleak the next act.
Im not saying that BWP it’s a concept album, just that if you look a little bit further you will see the relations between each song.
I think that later i will post the interpretation of TDF (if i can).

 

[chasepw133]

DEADLY BADGERS MADE MY WREATH!!!

It's all I hear anymore

 

[Wyrmwood]

All of Opeth albums are concept albums.

 

[The Wooden Doors]

I interpret the lyrics as a "nightmare" like relationship.

Lot of comparison to the night being what the character loates.
"... and thrust me back to the day"

"I'm counting nocturnal hours, drowned vision in haunted sleep"
Again, fear of the night time.

Every night he is pulled down ... "pull me down again and guide me into pain"




It's like the song itself has an evening (first clean vocal section) then the night comes (the transition) then the evil comes with the death growls.

"There is failure inside
This test I can't persist
Kept back by the enigma
No criterias demanded here"

The narrator has failed, and now he is confused and afraid.

The more I look at it... it's possible this song is about sex. Or, fear of it perhaps.

"Pouring a caress on your shoulder
Puzzled by shrewd innocence"

Inexperience?

"Nails bleeding from the struggle"
hmmm

"My gleaming eye in your necklace reflects
Stare of primal regrets"
Regrets of primal urges? ---> animal instincts = sex

And of course morning comes...

"Waking up to your sound again
And lapse into the ways of misery"

Just some thoughts.

 

[grey knight]

COOl, an interesting topic, and no one with awful large sigs. Please continue it like this.

Heck with you 12byfive...

 

[Twelveby5]

COOl, an interesting topic, and no one with awful large sigs. Please continue it like this.

no large sigs?

 

[in_my_time_of_disease]

All of Opeth albums are concept albums.

 

[anus slayer ov the dogs]

DEADLY BADGERS MADE MY WREATH!!!

Deadly badgers laid my wreath, you mean.

BTW not all of Opeth's albums are concept, I believe MAYH and SL are probably the only officially concept ones.

 

[GhostOfPudding]

No, that's not what I meant.

What I wrote is exactly what I heard the first time.

 

[Taran]

Thanks for this thread! "The Drapery Falls" is one of those Opeth songs, where I struggle to find a coherent interpretation of the lyrics. Another example would be "Wreath".
Excellent interpretations above. I'm curious for more.

 

[soulsadness]

people,do you ever think that maybe musicians that write songs like that (meaning in depressive situations) don't think how it will sound like later to us,the listeners? i think that they are writing it just to more easily get over those hard times that we all fall into from time to time. and i can say that i speak from my own experience, because i write too. rarely lyrics,but more like thoughts and reflections on my life. and i never calculate what will it look like in the end. i just write... i think that that's the case with this song too. i think it came out of the writers soul. i imagine it like he wrote it all night,non stopping,passing through different stages of dealing with pain and putting it down on paper...i could just cry listening to Drapery Falls...this song is the pain itself!

 

[TaurNuFuin]

Well, thats the case with some lyricists/poets, but there's just as many that spend quite a bit of time agonizing over perfecting the initial draft. Not knowing much about Mikael's writing habits, I can't really say for certain, but give the depth, complexity and subtlety of most of his lyrics, I kind of doubt that they were scribbled out on the spot without any further thought or revising.

 

[Frosties]

people,do you ever think that maybe musicians that write songs like that (meaning in depressive situations) don't think how it will sound like later to us,the listeners? i think that they are writing it just to more easily get over those hard times that we all fall into from time to time. and i can say that i speak from my own experience, because i write too. rarely lyrics,but more like thoughts and reflections on my life. and i never calculate what will it look like in the end. i just write... i think that that's the case with this song too. i think it came out of the writers soul. i imagine it like he wrote it all night,non stopping,passing through different stages of dealing with pain and putting it down on paper...i could just cry listening to Drapery Falls...this song is the pain itself!

Why are you trying to camouflage your post?

 

[beast from the east]

I kind of see it as a "longing" to escape a relationship, with the subject having depressive and angry resentment toward his partner. And ultimately, human weakness makes the subject incapable of this "escape", and he wallows in the misery and despair of being profoundly unhappy...maybe even abused.

That's my $0.02...

 

[in_my_time_of_disease]

Why are you trying to camouflage your post?

hurts my eyes too.

 

[Seikojin]

I thought it was a relationship type of message too.

I like alot of the insight others have into the songs... At the time this first came out, I was thinking how it applied to my view of relationships. Thats changed since three or four years ago, so I can see the nightmare views and sex, which is odd lyrically though.