UNFAMILIAR FACES

Chorus

I can hear the voice in my head

You get what you chase 

But you’ve been running in place¹ to keep yourself alive²

I can never sleep in my bed³

The shadows and shapes 

And unfamiliar faces keep me up at night

Verse 1

Stomach aches 

I can’t eat and have my cake too

Take a fake spoon, that I can’t see my face through  

Summer days

I’ve been building by the beachside

Towers reach high⁴, but can’t escape the king tide now⁵

Verse 2

Kill the game 

I’m as cut throat as the next guy

Go to get mine, but I’m choking⁶ from my neck tie⁷

Still the same

I tell people that I’m vibing

They think i’m thriving, but I’m really just surviving

Outro⁸

Down the helix⁹

Can I heal this by myself

Stop the cycle¹⁰

To find revival from myself

---

¹ The Red Queen's Race

² Mt 16:25

³ “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee” - St. Augustine, Confessions

⁴ Gen 11:1-9 

⁵ Mt 7:24-27

⁶ Losing the spirit within. The Greek word “pneuma” means “spirit”, “breath”, and “wind” simultaneously. See Owen Barfield’s Poetic Diction

⁷ Symbolic of the business man wearing a tie, in order to participate in worldly gain.  Left unchecked, this endeavor can cause a loss of a spiritual life (loss of air). Related: The “Ring of Power” from Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings, and the idea of the “Garments of Skin” explained by Jonathan Pageau (derived from Gregory of Nyssa’s The Life of Moses)

⁸ The choir is singing two words, "Agnus Dei". This is a hint at the solution to the problems laid out in the song. By his own efforts, man cannot “heal” from the problem of chaos and breakdown.  The attempt to control this problem has been warned against, from Eden to Babel to Mount Doom.  Participation in the Christian life, that is, the life of self-emptying (kenosis) is the only solution (i.e. “destroying the One Ring”).  It is through Christ, who “takes away the sins of the world”, that we are granted peace. 

⁹ Symbolic notions include, the DNA double helix, the Caduceus, the Golden Mean, and others. 

¹⁰ Symbolic notions include, Yin and Yang, Rene Girard on mimetic theory and scapegoating, the ouroboros, Fortuna’s “Wheel of Fortune”, menstruation, cyclical implications from wave-particle duality, and others.