River Lies
What do people think it's about?
"Always make sure you have a spare key before closing strange doors you may want to reopen later." -- Chris.
"One very fucked up relationship." -- Shawn.
"One more reason not to want to sleep with watery tarts." -- Mars.
When presented with this question, what does Seanan say it's about?
"There are two sides to every story, and often more than two sides to every fairy tale. The person who locks the tower door has just as much reason for what they do as the one who sleeps in the tower while the candles burn down. And sometimes, there is no happy ever after. For either one."
What is it actually about?
Love -- real, true, forever love -- is sometimes the greatest weapon that the world has to use against us. Ole and December were in love once, centuries ago. He's died and been reborn since then; she hasn't. And it doesn't matter either way, because no matter how far they go and how hard they try, they've never been able to get over one another. The past just won't let go of them.
Genesis of the song:
I love -- truly and passionately love -- 'split-screen duets': duets where the people singing aren't in the same room, and aren't even necessarily aware of the other person that's singing. (The examples most commonly known are probably 'Somewhere Out There' from An American Tail and 'One Little Star' from Follow That Bird. For some slightly larger-scale examples, look to 'Downtown' from Little Shop of Horrors or 'Walk Through the Fire' from Once More With Feeling.) So when I started trying to feel out some songs for this particular set of characters, I promptly thought that Ole and Emmy deserved a split-screen. Something they could sing together while remaining entirely apart. Because that would, after all, hurt more.
My first notes on this song, which include the first two verses as they eventually appeared in the finished piece, are dated August 22nd, 2001. It took a little under two months to go from there to the actual, finalized song, and the reason for that was pretty simple: I needed it to hurt. I needed it to hurt really, really badly. The piecing-together of the lyrics wasn't as important as making sure that when they came together, they did it the right way.
The final push to finish the song came when I had the chance to perform it at OVFF 2001 with two of my favorite people, Steve Macdonald and Gwen Knighton. Thus challenged, I ploughed through the end in one long heat.
It still makes me happy.
Story of the Song.
'River Lies' is essentially the story of a fairy tale romance gone
horribly off the rails. As a consequence, there's really only one way to
start explaining it, and that's this: once upon a time...
Once upon a time, in a kingdom so far away that it never existed at all, a girl who should have been a boatman's daughter was born the daughter of a great household, instead. And they named her 'Dikembris', which came to be 'December', once the story had enough centuries behind it. At the same time, in the same kingdom, there was a man who should have been a king but had become, instead, a fool, and his name was Olivier, which came to be 'Ole', once the tide had turned sufficient times around. And because this was a fairy tale, they met, and they fell in love on the banks of the river that flowed through their kingdom, moving from one end of time to the other.
Unfortunately for December and Ole, they were living in a fairy tale...but it wasn't theirs. It was, instead, the story of three princesses, and a woman who defied her brother, and a dozen other people, but never theirs. So one day, when she was asked to ferry a princess from their kingdom back to the beginning of time, where she could sleep undisturbed, December had no way of refusing. That's what it means to live inside of a story, you see. But because this happened on a night when the story was already going in a hundred different directions at the same time, Ole was exhausted, and so, when she left on her errand, she didn't wake him. She locked the door to their tower room behind herself, and she left, and she never came home.
Ole died in the tower by his own hand, watching the story as it ended all around him. And on the River of all time, December couldn't die; she had to remain outside the narrative as it wrapped around itself, beginning and ending again and again, and carrying Ole with it.
Now kept apart by centuries, and by the fact that December -- trapped as she is outside the scope of the story -- no longer technically exists, they've become the ultimate in star-crossed lovers: neither is even entirely sure the other is out there, and Ole isn't really convinced that she ever was. But they're still fairy tale lovers, which means they can never properly forget what never actually happened.
Sometimes, the worst place you can be is trapped inside a fairy tale.
They aren't likely to live happily ever after.
Arranging the Song.
Of all the arrangements on Stars Fall Home, 'River Lies' came first. As I was finishing the song in 2001, I contacted Steve Macdonald and Gwen Knighton to ask if they would be willing to perform it with me. Both of them were provided with a rough vocal MP3 to work from. Steve quickly worked out the chording, and developed his guitar line from there, while Gwen discovered that the key in which the song was written would require completely retuning her harp. Somehow, this didn't cause her to kill me. I love Gwen a lot.
That first arrangement made me happy in ways I can't quite explain, and when the time came to record the song for this album, I flew to England to recreate it. I'm not sorry.
Trivia About the Song.
'River Lies' is the second song from Pretty Little Dead Girl to appear on Stars Fall Home. It is the only song on Stars Fall Home recorded principally in the United Kingdom, at The Mill House in Peterborough, England.
Having been asked repeatedly what the female voice is saying during the first verse, here it is:
The tide rolls out,
And time rolls in.
You never can
Go home again.
During recording, to check my vocal levels, I wound up parodying the song to the tune of 'Hotel California', as follows:
I woke up in the tower
A little bit before dawn.
The scented candles were burning still,
But I found my girlfriend was gone.
And now I have to wonder
Just what she's doing to me.
'Cause when she left she went and locked the door,
And the stupid bitch took the key!
I am a danger to myself and others.
Factual Bits and Bobs.
Written on: October 11th, 2001.
Structure: Verse/Verse/Chorus/Verse/Verse/Chorus/Bridge/Chorus.
Arrangement: Male lead vocal, female lead vocal, wirestring harp, twelve-string guitar.
Tempo: Low/moderate.
Length: 4:15.