Watershed Lyrics From Mikael

[Saint - Ex]

@ Dadutta: There are many things that doesn't fit in your theory. If he wants to enter the faith, why does he say, that he wants to get out of there.
Your overall thinking of someone who is seperated from others might fit, but I think it doesn't have something to do with faith or believe.
I guess it's some kind of a familydrama.

The Satan-Message-Thing: I'm pretty sure it's a joke. The backward lines are so obvious, everybody gets that there is something wrong. Furter there is the line "sweet satan" which is absolutly similar to the one in Stairway to heaven.
It might have a connection to song, like Itchy and Scratchy have a connection to each episode they appear in, but if there is a sense in it, than it's not very important.

 

[FRUGiHOYi]

Provided the code is in English we can do the following:

1. Count how many times each symbol appears. In English, the letter 'E' is the most prominent by far, so the symbol that appears most is most likely the letter 'E'. In this text, the symbol is by far the most common one, so you can't go wrong.

2. The most common word in English is "THE". Since we've already found 'E', we need to find the most common two symbol combination that comes just before the symbol 'E'. Also here, there is one combination that's way more common than the others, so you can't go wrong. Here, I hit a bump the first time and didn't get a combination that was significantly more common than others, until I turned the booklet upside down. Then I found a combination that was way more common than the others. Now you've found the letters "T" and "H".

3. Now you should be able to find patterns where you can see other words that contain the letters 'E', 'T' and 'H', but also one or two other letters to fill in some blanks. (I found 'THAT' on a few places, and therefore could fill in the letter 'A', first checking that 'A' made sense for that symbol on other places).

4. Repeat 3 for other letters and you will soon enough have found what letters all the symbols represent.

It is a bit time consuming, but it's not really that hard. It helps if you can make a larger copy of the code and it helps even more if you can somehow make space between each row to fill in the letters. I used an image manipulation program to cut and paste each row from a scanned image of the code to a document in a word processor, leaving space between each row, then printed it out and did all the work on that paper.

Other people might have other tips on how to make things easier.

Are you sure E is the most common letter? I thought it was S.

 

[NSpen1]

It is e which is the most common letter.
Of course, if you have a symbol that represents more than one letter then that can throw things out a bit

 

[Stilgar]

Are you sure E is the most common letter? I thought it was S.

Maybe in Danish?

 

[Taran]

Hey Stilgar!
Thanks for the scanned image of the Special-Edition-Code. I deciphered it and it was quite fun. Do you have the scanned image of the code in the regular edition too?

 

[Stilgar]

Hey Stilgar!
Thanks for the scanned image of the Special-Edition-Code. I deciphered it and it was quite fun. Do you have the scanned image of the code in the regular edition too?

Unfortunately, I only have the Special Edition version.

 

[sambojoho]

Has anyone figured out the missing lyrics in Hessian Peel yet? The phrase around 6:00 mark sounds like "The light comes on. Your weakness, starving to rest in your arms."

Doesn't quite make perfect sense, but I think it's closer than the previous guesses of "storing trace" or whatever.

 

[Taran]

Hmm well, first of all, I'm pretty sure it's "The night comes on" her. I hear definitely an "n". I have no idea about the next line. But the first word seems to start with a "s" and includes also an "a". So I guess it is "Stark weakness" because "stark" is a word from the Mikael-Åkerfeldt-extraordinary-vocabulary

 

[sambojoho]

Hmm well, first of all, I'm pretty sure it's "The night comes on" her. I hear definitely an "n". I have no idea about the next line. But the first word seems to start with a "s" and includes also an "a". So I guess it is "Stark weakness" because "stark" is a word from the Mikael-Åkerfeldt-extraordinary-vocabulary

No, "the light comes on" is definitely right, because it has been deciphered from the code on the CD.

Stark weakness is interesting though, I'll have to listen again...

 

[sambojoho]

Actually, now that I listen to it again, I think I had it wrong. I think he says "Striving to rest in your arms". Now THAT makes sense in the context of the song.

Also, it sounds like it could be stark.

 

[hexwind]

Anyone could figure out what the album is about???!!!

 

[Echolipse]

songmeanings.net

 

[hexwind]

^yeah but everyone brings a different story lol

 

[Nasty-Fire]

songmeanings.net

That website sucks. You'll find nothing on it. This discussion has actually the best precision about a possible story in Watershed. I'm glad of what many of you brought, like the pictures related to the left-over lyrics. And the theory about a pregnant woman and his husband leaving her because of it seems to be the right way to find the real hidden story.

 

[BrandonS]

There's a total creative difference between saying an actual sentence that sounds like "my sweet satan" backwards and just recording it and reversing it into gibberish. That's just silly.

 

[philno]

^ yep. it's rather annoying to listen to some reversed lyrics just because mike felt like making a nod to led zeppelin.

 

[Spreadingthe Living312]

^yeah but everyone brings a different story lol

This is a good thing. I dont think Mikael's intention was for us to find out what he meant when writing the lyrics, but for us to draw our own conclusions on what the lyrics mean to us. That is the beauty of abstract art.

 

[hexwind]

^Yeah I know..but I just wanted to know what's the story behind those lyrics and it meant to Mike..maybe it's his own business...

 

[hexwind]

I was thinking about Burden lyric on my way to uni, and i had an idea about its meanings,i'm not sure about it but i just wanted to share it lol.anyways
It can be about the departure of Lopez and Peter.. "carried a burden inside" = The band..it was his biggest interest maybe? "saw a movement in their eyes that said i no long new the way" this line made me think abt the departure.. "You've taken more than we received" they didn't bring things to the table as much as Mike did...That reminds me of The Division Bell..and how Gilmore talked about the departure of the other memember (sorry dunno his name )
Any other ideas?

 

[Nasty-Fire]

^ Hmmm I would bet a lot of money that it's not about them.

EDIT : You should detail more about it. Two or three sentences in a song doesn't confirm what the song is all about.