Anatomy of a Remix – Sleep Station: The Promise You Made v2
I am not fascinated with death. But I do imagine what I might say if I knew it was coming.
Whether I would be obsessed with its immediate circumstances or whether I would try to put my life in a small capsule of words. Would I be grief or panic stricken? Cold or desperate for human contact? Would I try to laugh it off or be crushed by the weight of it all? Those questions are hinted at throughout the EP, but they had to be answered now.
At the end of our remix album The Sleep Station EP comes a song in which we imagine our hero, Colonel Eddie, is drifting in a space capsule – damned to die alone as Charlie moves out of radio range toward re-entry. The song is meant to be a dying transmission – Eddie knows these are the last words anyone will ever hear him speak, so he struggles to be heard over the interference.
The Promise You Made v3 is ugly, and purposefully so. Death is ugly and so is isolation. This cacophony of sound is meant not only to bring his physical state to the fore, but underscore the chaos of grand thought and depression that envelop Eddie as he loses contact with Charlie in an endless void.
It begins with a recollection of the run-up to launch – Diaries originally written by Dave Debiak for Hang In There Charlie. It ends by blending what I would have said at the moment of death with Charlie’s condition.
Mr. President, it is my greatest honor and privilege to be considered by you and your peers to have me take part in this mission. I humbly accept this opportunity to be a pilot in the project known as Flight One. I have trained for this for what feels like my whole life, I dreamed of this as a child… I have trained for this for what feels like my whole life, I dreamed of this as a child… ..we have arrived and every moment is spent working, there is little time for writing… In closing, Mr. President, I give you my word as an officer in the United States Air Force, be it in life or in death This mission will be accomplished.
The song itself is another one of these diaries, slowly fading in and our of Charlie’s range. Our hero is still disturbed by his decision to protest conditions in the secret space station – a decision that forced NASA to leave Charlie to die alone.
WE came the way of this burning faith
SHE saved my soul so I made the most
HE said these words, so in death he’ll learn his last verbs were a curse – his mind’s dead to be heard.
The only thing of which we dream is a vision of sleep/ We all flee from the deep which is dark and steep/ fall off when your knees buckle to your sleeves/ and if you know what we hope, then we’re one-in-the-hole/ throw a rope in the smoke, pull out all we know/ an empty cage for the rage that I feel for fate/ the promise we made – I’d honestly break and hate the snakes who smash grank and skank 20 bars of weight./
I will miss you. I remember you sitting on your porch swing waiting for me to kiss you. nothing else in this world mattered but you. Now I’m here and I’m missing everything you do. I was always taking from you and I’ve given nothing in return. … Floating here with no hope of returning, I try to fight it off but in my dreams I am missing my head, walking endlessly. There is no heaven, it is gone. And I’ll never see you again.
Hotter than a blue star – bonds red, cop cars?/ They smear we fear what comes what goes who flows, and who sold rap’s soul?/ Well I can buy it back from the city in black/ If I could take a stab, but my knife is a pad/ Hip-hop could make a run from fake gangsters, Guns? More likely to be wed in Elena’s bed/ You see, true poems float like Charlie’s hope/ When the anonymous are dead like the promise they shed/ I said we might reach the end, but love the present instead/ I said we might reach the end, but love the present instead.
So here it is, hope you enjoy!
The rest of this continuing series:
http://www.airandseabattle.com/2009/03/11/anatomy-of-a-remix-sleep-station-flight-1/
http://www.airandseabattle.com/2009/02/18/anatomy-of-a-remix-sleep-station-fallen/
Related posts:
- Anatomy Of A Remix – Sleep Station: Flight 1
- Anatomy of a Remix – Sleep Station: Fallen
- Sleep Station – “Where Love Used To Grow” [video]
- Sleep Station – Songs From The Highway Vol. 1
- Sleep Station – “Brothers” [video]
