Earthquake Weather
What do people think it's about?
"It's a warning of the ways that stories twist and change there, and of the ways they weave through things. It's also a warning that the stories there rarely end, so there's never the happy ending. You're always stuck in the middle of the story and that's a dangerous place to be." -- Rebecca.
"It seems to me to be sort of an arch-forest. That's not quite right. Sort of like a platonic ideal of a forest, but it's the one where stories happen, all stories. This is the forest of the true fairy tales, the ones that the Grimms tried to collect, but they were never able to touch more than the smallest part of the stories, because the true ones were so much darker than what even they wrote about, but brighter, too, so it's sort of the akashic record of forests and myths and stories. It's like the Forest of Warnings, and something big is coming.." -- Jessica.
"Dangerous times. People not being who you thought they were." -- Vixy.
When presented with this question, what does Seanan say it's about?
"There are places where it's never really safe, but where 'safe' isn't the primary consideration, either; where people are focused on things more important than just the day-to-day, and have started looking towards the stories. There are places where it's still once upon a time, where it's been once upon a time forever and for always, and where the 'ever afters' are just threats you make to children -- 'ever after' means the story's over, after all. There are places where the thought of stories ending is the most terrifying thought of them all.
"The Babylon Wood is one of those places. And this song is a story about the place where stories never die."
What is it actually about?
'Earthquake Weather' is, in its own way, an introduction to a place that isn't a place, where stories take wing and shadows have eyes: the Babylon Wood. It's also an allegorical tour through a state of mind and a moment in time...but really, it's the beginning of a once upon a maybe, it's a place you shouldn't go without a guide, if you're going to go there at all, and it's a story that begins and ends in the same place, every day, forever and for always, and never at all.
Maybe that doesn't make much sense. Then again, a lot of people say that the song doesn't make all that much sense either, so I'm pretty much okay with that.
Genesis of the song.
The rose-owl is just one of a lot of symbols that tend to drift around the edges of the things I do -- if you check out the Babylon Wood sidebar, you'll find a detailed guide to the creatures and people of the Wood, but in the case of the rose-owl, she's a very nebulous figure: she's creation and destruction and creation that destroys, which is a nice job, when you can get it. A lot of my favorite pieces have been rose-owl songs, down at their roots. So when I get a rose-owl song in my head, I tend to chase it down.
The first half of the first verse of 'Earthquake Weather' came pretty much without actual thought, somewhere in the neighborhood of six o'clock in the morning, as I was walking through downtown San Francisco. I tend to find rose-owl songs when it's foggy out. I'd try to say this was a reflection of my state of mind, or the state of the city, but really, I think it's just that when the world turns gray, my mind starts chasing red things. I liked the rhyme scheme and the way things slotted together, and besides, it was a rose-owl song, so I decided to pursue it, and see where it went.
The second half of the verse was as easy as the first had been; this is frequently the case with the songs that have really tedious rhyme schemes. One verse is a fluke, two verses means I'm hooked, and will have to pursue things to their bitter end. And yes, 'Earthquake Weather' has a nasty rhyme scheme -- if you actually break it down, each of the verses runs:
A (The rose-owl spreads her blood-red wings)
A (And we know full well the song she sings)
A (The scourge of cabin boys and kings)
B (They say...)
C (While the raven of keys)
C (In the dreaming trees)
C (She's had her share of destinies)
B (And that's why she ran away...)
Not the nastiest thing I've ever had to deal with -- definitely not the nastiest thing I've ever had to diagram -- but when you're dealing with a song that does sets of three single-syllable rhymes in a row, it's very hard not to devolve into Dr. Seuss. (In point of fact, the second verse? Rhymes 'cat', 'hat', and 'rat'. Ah, the complexity of songwriting.) It took the better part of a week to muddle through the verses -- just the verses, as 'Earthquake Weather' was, unusually for me, written in 'segments'. First the verses, then the choruses and bridge. Lacing them all together was the last step...or so I thought.
In its original incarnation, 'Earthquake Weather' was fast and sort of rock-esque, rather than the dreamy fairy tale that it would eventually become. It was straightforward, if strange, and it went from point A to point B without pausing, and I thought it was done. Then, over the next few weeks, I kept finding myself singing it as I walked, worrying at it, trying to figure out what I was missing. Finally, I figured it out:
I was missing an entire second set of lyrics, running underneath and alongside the first set. Oops.
Once I realized those other lyrics were there, they all came crashing down on me, almost instantly clear. They changed the meaning of the song entirely, without changing it at all; it became, at the same time, a series of snapshots of the Wood, and a very sad, very sincere story about the Seasonal Monarchs, and how they're always together, and always apart. It's all in the lyrics, and how they fall -- or fail to fall -- into one another.
Follow the white hard. In for a candle.
Story of the Song.
All right, here's the thing: there are really two stories in 'Earthquake Weather'. No, wait, my count's off. There are three stories in 'Earthquake Weather'.
The first story, which is the easiest to find, is really more of a tourist's guide than a linear tale -- it's an introduction to the Babylon Wood. A somewhat allegorical introduction, sure, but since it's a fairly allegorical place, that works out pretty well. You can get a better idea of the Wood and its inhabitants by checking out our 'Babylon Wood' sidebar, which lists the primary players in that particular little slice of never-was.
The second story -- also fairly easy to find, once you start looking for it -- is about the Wood itself. The Princess of Storms throws parties on a regular basis, you see, and about half the residents of the Wood inevitably find themselves invited. Not always the same half, either. The Rose-Owl and the Fox of the Flowers almost always attend; the former if the urge catches her, and the latter to make sure that the former can't cause too much trouble. The Rose-Owl's a liar, after all, and a trickster of the cruelest kind. Not exactly someone you want to have at one of your parties without some sort of controls in place.
The last of the stories is the hardest to really find, and that's at least partially because it's the truest story of them all. The Babylon Wood is a seasonal place. The warm part of the year belongs to the Summer's Queen, who wears a gown of green and leaves flowers in her footsteps; her skin is white as snow, her hair as black as coal, and she's lived in a great many stories, in her time. The cold part of the year belongs to the King of Snows, and the two of them meet only in the limnal spaces, the spring and the fall, where they dance, and dream, and marry anew...and where one of them, inevitably, kills the other, and stumbles into their regency alone. 'Earthquake Weather' takes place during the Storm Princess's celebration of the Spring Equinox, when the Summer's Queen kills her husband and walks, weeping, into the trees.
Stories in the Babylon Wood, once they start, have a tendency to just keep going forever and ever and always. The King and Queen don't want to be what they are; they just don't have a choice. They paid their coins and traded in their candles, and this is where they belong now.
'Earthquake Weather' comes after 'Follow Me Down' in the seasonal monarchs song cycle.
Arranging the Song.
To arrange 'Earthquake Weather', I basically went to Jeff Bohnhoff with a lyric map and a scratch MP3. Everything else came from there. Including the clock that chimes us into and out of the song. Because everything's better with a clock that counts you down to midnight.
'Earthquake Weather' is the second (and last) song on the album recorded at Mystic Fig studios, by Jeff Bohnhoff.
The Babylon Rhyme
The question I get most often about this song is 'what do the spoken bits mean?'. There are two spoken interludes in 'Earthquake Weather', at the beginning and midway points of the song. These are:
"Say the words and we'll begin;
It's three-score miles and ten."
...and...
"Follow the white hare;
In for a candle."
Although the white hare is a reference specific to the Babylon Wood itself (and a bit of a Wonderland reference at the same time), the rest of the spoken bits come from a traditional English nursery rhyme, which goes:
"How many miles to Babylon?
It's three-score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candlelight?
Ah, yes, and back again.
If you travel fast and you travel light,
You can get there and back by the candle's light."
When in the Babylon Wood, try not to lose your candle.
Factual Bits and Bobs.
Written on: May 3rd, 2006.
Structure: Verse/Verse/Chorus/Bridge1/Verse/Verse/Chorus/Bridge2/Bridge3/Verse/Verse/Chorus/Chorus2.
Arrangement: Vocals, keyboard, guitar, drums, bass, strings, ominous countdown.
Tempo: Counting down to midnight, one second at a time.
Length: 7:04.