I associate specific feelings and scenarios with early DT stuff, probably because back then my emotional imagery was, weirdly enough, more open and more closed at the same time. Anyway, each and every time I listen to 'Skywards', especially when Friden goes 'Now it's time for retributive thoughts', I feel that I'm going to make it, have a fulfilling life, no matter the odds against me. Still, the feeling is not one of pure, optimistic hope: it's more bitter than that, sort of 'Look how very wrong life is, look how very heavy on our shoulders the world is, nevertheless I'm going to take it standing up'. Or something.
'A bolt of blazing gold' makes me think of Stillorgan Wood, a small park in Dublin where several significant things happened, back when I could drink and drink and never be sick. I also used to talk a lot with some friends, one of which is still in my life while the other isn't - he's not dead, as Big Ilaria and her kin will have it, we're just not in touch anymore. I made him listen to DT in Stillorgan Wood for the best part of the summer of 1994. And I listened to the song over and over while sitting under a very special group of trees. The place looked straight out of LOTR. It probably still does, but I haven't been there in 9 years. *cries*
'Shadow Duet' has made me feel all sort of things in all sorts of period. Currently, I associate it with Harry Potter. Don't ask.
'Alone' is something that used to come to my mind several times in times of bereavement. The lyrics to the first verse just seemed to fit perfectly whenever I faced a sentimental rejection. I also think, although I'm not sure because I was sort of blurred mentally, that 'the shattered kingdom in ruins before me' came to me when my friend Carlo died, on September 11th 2004.
On to later stuff - the older I get, the worst I get at remembering song titles, lyrics, specific riffs. i have always had the impression that rahvin can't stand this type of approximation, but he doesn't tell me too often because he's kind.
anyway, I also get progressively worse at remembering titles and authors of papers, which is bad for my career. but let's not get distracted.
the intro to 'tidal tantrum' gives me a strong impression of surging energy, and physical strenght. it's one of these songs that i need to have handy when i'm working out - in the same fashion of samael's 'on earth', the first notes make me push through whatever exhausting thing i might be doing at the moment, and it's amazing how a song can produce an endorphine rush that actually has physical effects. this feeling is the closest i get to triumph (no, not
of steel 
). still, in much the same way as what i said about 'skywards', it's not serene and unmarred; it's about having to fight and having a chance, having to give it my all for something that might end up in blood. something very, very similar happens with the incredible riff to 'the sun fired blanks' and, to a lesser degree, with 'feast of burden'.
'final resistence' holds a very, very specific meaning for me. on september 4, 2002 i was about to sit my oral exam in order to get my current job, after having unexpectedly passed the written on the day before. i woke up very early in the morning, because the exam was at 8 and anyway i was too shaky and emotional to sleep long - had coffee, then went for a smoke upstairs in the very shabby hotel i was staying at, and blasted 'final resistence' on my portable CD player. while i didn't particulary want to see the bearings of disaster, it was kind of important to remind myself that this was a last effort, that i needed to hold on tight for little more than three hours and maybe then all the mad working and suffering would be over. which happened.
'the same' and 'the enemy', two of my favorite DT songs, are strictly connected with passion in my perception. i'm not specifically referring to sexual passion, although that's a part of it - these songs, because of their intensity, recall to me all that is strongly wanting something, but also believe in something, putting oneself in something. while other songs i've mentioned make me think of the result, those two are focused on expression of the self through identification with what is wanted and/or loved, a kind of dispersion of identity in a passionate flow. 'lethe' partially does the trick, but i find the two songs above more on the point - 'the same' because it's excessive in a sense, baroque, dark and enveloping like a four-poster bed with dark crimson curtains, not too focused on the detail but rather on the magnitude of unpolished feelings, much like a teenager discovering the association between love and death. 'the enemy' is way more refined, way more rarefied, the very same concept from the heart of someone who can tell the differences between opulence and beauty... but still very passionate.
oh my. i'm rambling. and i've written far too much. there would be more, but i. have. to. work.
