[The short Portuguese piece at the end of the song is actually a quote from one of the most famous and at the same enigmatic poets of Portuguese literature, Fernando Pessoa, whose works are abundantly translated into several languages from Czech to English itself. Anyway to make a long story short one of the most interesting aspects of this poet was that we used different personalities each one creating a peculiar kind of writing and a very particular universe of interpretation and artistic creation. I have chosen my favorite split on Pessoa's on the "person" of his heteronyms Alvaro de Campos who was more directed into a kind of urban, grey, depressive poetry. As I wanted to write a song about the creative power of the drug named opium, so evident in a lot of literature that is within my range of interest, I have collected inspiration from a particular poem named "Opicrio" that narrates a boat trip to the Orient in a very, very strange perspective indeed. So the actual thing translated might sound like this (I remark once again all the loss of power that translation carries with it):]
["Therefore I take opium. It is a medicine.] [I am a convalescent of the Moment.] [I live in the ground floor of Thought] [and seeing life goes by grows me tedious."]
Opium, desire or will? Inspiration bound from an elegant seed Subversion, through smoke I foresee Erotic motions of lesser gods in ecstasy
Opium, bring me forth another dream Spawn worlds of flesh and red, little jewels of atrocity Opium, I sleep in debauchery And burn with you when you burn in Me
Opium, we fantasize as we fuse with your root You are a strange flower, we are your strangest fruit
Opium, it burns in me and you Opium, it burns for me and for you
"E por isso eu tomo ópio, é um remédio Sou um convalescente do momento, Moro no rés-do-chão do pensamento E ver passar a vida faz-me tédio."
[Fernando Pessoa / Alvaro Campos: Opi rio]
3. Awake!
Awake... for all is dying, even the dead
We are our Past failing to come back
All of us visionaires with a rope around our neck
4. For A Taste Of Eternity
Your honey on coil burns, As tears drop from your grand dead womb
Undesired, I fell into your being Releasing shapes inside of you Only seen in your wildest dreams I am the impossibility of your long-kept chastity I am your offence and you can't wait To have me inside of you and taste...
Eternity
Revolving around me, in desire, you burn As blood drops from your new-awakened womb
Undesired, and thrown away from your belief I am the one whom you were taught to renounce In your virginal fear The sweat, the hands, the sleepless nights And the violence of the silent sighs All of them gather in me Take my hand and taste eternity Take my hand and find a new god
5. Ruin And Misery
In each of your failures I saw my victory And each time you fall A knife tattoos a smile On my lips You are now empty of life And we are drunk with death
Raw models Ruin & Misery
I can offer you a hand To help you hold the dagger A perfect jewel for Our perfect end
And as we lay, we kissed Fingers wet with poison Thinking to each one There is beauty in death
Raw models Ruin & Misery
Allow me to doubt We were lovers who could really share The only love between us Was hate
Without hope we could not fear And silently we disappeared Hand in hand, we took our lives And together stopped being Raw models on a novel of Ruin & Misery
6. A Poisoned Gift
Forever young in a ground so cold The splendor of your death still fresh to behold
In your neck an open wound To spawn life into your Love And to feed the creatures of our world
We have tasted from the poisoned gift of love Which condemned us to forever fly alone
We have experienced an aged potion The wine of life which stole us light May we gather again and be as one And to forever relish in the twin joys
As we taste from the poisoned gift of love
Forever young in a ground so cold The splendour of your dance still there to behold
Our legend is a sin in tongues To eternal sleep, to trance we belong We are now but an empty glance Palid is your state of grace
To eternal sleep we belong Feeling the rapture of the world Beneath the violence of this curse From the poisoned gift of love
Once I asked you to fly Tonight I recreate the vow: Do not fail to love Me as I have failed to die With you...
7. Subversion
Perverse: the religion of pain In each detail a world, I know you hide something...
8. Raven Claws
I remember her as a child
Raven...on and on with her raven claws Carving...on and on with her raven claws
How she lusts when she remembers The night of her first blow She always wanted to know How far could she really go
Inflamed, a dead-end room Seduce to consume Nightsilence...Vampire...Empire Statues with open wounds
The flavour of poison and moon Still maturing on her blood She is not your occasional affair, no! But eternal love, drop by drop...
Raven...on and on with her raven claws Carving...on and on with her raven claws
How daylight hurts when moonlight bites She juggles with her invisible knife A black bird senses danger and flies Gives peace to a tall figure in the dark
Little silhouette snakes find a warm nest behind the door And whip-tongues and skins of sisters now gone.
Bodyprints cover the velvet floor Which grows red and red They know she will hunt and hurt tonight And they crown her Queen of the Dead.
Raven...on and on with her raven claws Raping...on and on with her raven claws
Will she weep for them or whip them once again?
9. Mephisto
As madmen, some hung head down From a long dead tree Some discuss, all at once For no one to hear
Variations on emptiness Great themes on vain glory
And as some go feral in strange performances Dressing customs that are metaphors Of your disease Hungry eyes are looking for Me...Mephisto
Laughing, I feed you With meaningless games, tricks and philosophies Whose answers you would die for In your hunger to believe
How it does amuse Me And makes Me wonder For how long that it was Mine Because now it does really inflame Me
As if ignorance was my secret desire...Mephisto
I am an angel who dresses in red Riding above you, etching fire rings I have learned to fly Don't you remember? While you still have not come down From your long-dead tree
I can teach you wonders if you give me your soul Marvels and wild dreams can be yours I can teach you how iron turns to gold And how life can grow so old
But I am a demon who dresses in red And I do not hope you will understand...Mephisto
10. Herr Spiegelman
Look Me in the eyes and drown...
"Everyone considered the man in the blue jacket as the most beautiful human being they have ever seen: nuns saw on him the Messiah in flesh; Satan's adorers the lustrous Prince of Darkness; philosophers the Supreme Being; young females an enchanted prince; Men an ideal reflection of themselves."
Patrick Süskind: The Perfume ("Story Of An Assassin")
Look Me in the eyes and drown...
I am your vulture, your immoral sculpture Mirrorman, who understands I know you, I am you Your fantasy and reality I wait for you to welcome you in my dreamworld My water-eyes
Look Me in the eyes Touch me in the eyes and dream...
11. Full Moon Madness
[The Narrated verses are nothing particularly worth of explaining in depth, they are just some of the many metaphors of Moonspell's lyrics so right to the point:]
[1st Portuguese verse:] We are wolf memories that tear the skin apart Wolves that once were men and shall be them again
[2nd Portuguese verse:] We are wolf memories that tear the skin apart Wolves that once were men and shall be them again or perhaps memories of men who insist of not tearing for to be wolves but that never shall be them again...
Somos memórias de lobos que rasgam a pele Lobos que foram homens e o tornarão a ser
They awake for flesh Choose pain as a path Refuse a light To blind you and me
Full Moon Madness, We are as one and congregate Full Moon Madness We rise again to procreate
Somos memórias de lobos que rasgam a pele Lobos que foram homens e o tornarão a ser ou talvez memórias de homens. que insistem em não rasgar a pele Homens que procuram ser lobos mas que jamais o tornarão a ser...
They awake for flesh Choose pain as a path Refuse a light To blind you and me
Full Moon Madness, We are as one and congregate Full Moon Madness We rise again to procreate to seal our fate
Irreverence was cast out from the sky And eternity lost its sex forever And under the same heaven they voted to emptiness They still celebrate under a Full Moon Madness...
They awake for flesh Choose pain as a path Refuse a light to blind you and me
Irreverence was cast out from the sky And eternity lost its sex forever And under the same heaven they voted to emptiness We still celebrate under a Full Moon Madness...
