The Great Escape Lyrics Confusion

[CantoX]

I noticed the lyrics on song meanings and dark lyrics seemed off, so I went ahead and listened to the song at 10% speed to get every syllable perfect to send in a correction. I'm still confused though on what exactly Tommy is singing in parts of the song. Could anyone help?

Exhibit A:

IV. Take-off
Loud sirens wail to send
the daunder towards the light
Leaving the ground we bathe in starlight,
while heading for oceans of night

I must have spent 15 minutes replaying the word in red. On song meanings and dark lyrics they put the word as "Goldoner" which as far as I know is not an english word. So after some research I find that in the poem Aniara the term Goldoner refers to a ship but the thing is I've replayed this part so many times and there is NO way Tommy is singing a "g" nor do I hear the letter "l." I distinctively hear the letter "d" starting off whatever the word is and a "d" in the middle.

Exhibit B:

We crown the skies with our tiara;
the life and faith of Aniara
(we write an endless symphony)

Song meanings and dark lyrics write this as "fate," but I can clearly hear Tommy singing a "th" sound right before saying of.

Exhibit C:

Now thousands were weeping
and hundreds cry in dismay
Twenty years today!

Now thousands were weeping
and hundreds cried in dismay
Twenty years today!

The first time Tommy sings "cry in," there is no "ed" at the end of cry, as suggested by song meanings and dark lyrics, but the second time it's sung you can hear him singing the "ed" which makes the word cried. Was this done on purpose and both are supposed to be different? I really can't hear "cried" the first time he sings it and only hear "cry in."

BTW first post here on the Seventh Wonder forums. Detective Clarence Beauregard recommended them on the Symphony X forums a while back and I really enjoy Mercy Falls. Just listened to The Great Escape two weeks ago and I fell in love with this song and now it's one of my favorites. :Spin:
Amazing band with amazing music.

 

[BaraHime]

^ Welcome to the forum. I'll take a crack at explaining, though it'll all be conjecture, it might be a bit helpful.

Singing can often distort one's words. It is hard to enunciate certain syllables when you're trying to sing with power. In my experience Dark Lyrics is pretty reliable as a source, so it's likely correct. Also, you should take into account in regards to Goldoner, that, because it isn't a real English word its pronunciation may not be perfectly phonetic. Tommy likely sang it closer to Gl-doner with a soft g in stead of the Gol-doner you might expect, which would result in it almost seeming to have been omitted altogether. Sons of Seasons had the reverse of that issue in Bubonic Waltz: G-henna instead of Geh-henna, it's the same word - Gehenna - just read differently. I'd blame a Swedish accent, but Tommy doesn't really have one.

As far as cry vs cried, I had never noticed, but if I had to guess it was either intentional, or just a mistake by Tommy. Assuming they actually are different, that is, I personally am too lazy to check at 2am.

As far as faith vs fate goes, I think that may just be an illusion created by Tommy transitioning from fate to of. Rather than singing a sharp faTe-of he sings something closer to fA~tof allowing the words to flow together to smooth out the line a bit. The lack of the hard T you expect from the word fate as well as the soft end you expect from the word faith combined with both starting with the same sound and both more or less making sense makes that the most logical possibility to me.

...But those are just my guesses. Perhaps one of the merry minstrels will pop in and tell us for sure.

 

[JesterIF]

According to the CD booklet:

First word is goldonder. (I can hear it fine personally, and it makes sense)

Second word is fate. (Here it definitely could be mistaken for faith, but I agree with BaraHime in this one. Fate makes a lot more sense too)

And it's 'cried' for both lines. (I, too, hear cry the first time though...)

 

[AndreasBlomqvist]

Hello and welcome to our neck of the woods!

I'll try to address your comments as the lyricist of this particular song.

1) The word is indeed Goldonder, from the book, referring to that particular type of space craft. Tommy is in fact singing three syllables where it seems like you hear two. What he is singing is "a gol-donder". If it is any help the "a" and the "gol" are on the two last 16th notes in the bar before the new "1st beat" where "donder" hits the 1.
Like: 1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a-3-e-and-a-4-e-"a"-"gol"-"donder".

2) This does sound a bit like faith, but there are two reasons for this working together here to create the illusion that he is singing faith. First, the Swedish sound for the consonant "t" is a bit softer than the English (american/british English anyway) "t". The tip of the tounge is not as far back in the pallet as for native english speakers, this makes it in theory like "half way" between a true English "t" and a "th". Secondly, and probably the most significant part is that the compressor used on the vocals can some time screw up sounds like "s", "t" and "p". Like in part V it almost sounds like the chorus starts with the line "From fledges and bonds" but I can assure you he is indeed singing "From pledges and bonds". This is the same kind of effect though. There are other examples on every album but they slip my mind right now.

3) I do believe it is "cried in dismay" both runs of that chorus.

I hope this was helpful.

 

[CantoX]

Thanks man! Really appreciate you chiming in.

And thanks to others!