I couldn’t stop listening to this one this week:

So naturally, I did some research and analysis. Here’s some things I found about the band and the song:

  • The band is like total BFF’s with Tegan and Sara.
  • Guitarist Nick Hurt and bassist Joey Delahoussaye are incredibly talented.
  • The lead singer, Troupe Gammage, wrote the song while driving through the Rocky Mountains. He wrote it to try to capture the glory of the landscape around him. I think he did a stellar job, don’t you? He also chose a noteworthy artist as a muse.
  • The song is about the ups and downs of a relationship.

Also, I had to mention that Troupe totally looks like Link from Legend of Zelda:

troupe-gammage-totally-looks-like-link-from-legend-of-zelda

Photo creds: Tim Griffin, IGN.com

See it? Is it just me? Anyways, moving on…

Musically, I appreciate the use of classical instrument voices such as harp, congas, and guzheng, acting as the rivers flowing through the valleys of the song. The distorted, static-y bass carries the trees’ roots well. Troupe’s voice is refreshing and lacks humidity, much like the mountain air, and the percussion is rocky in all the right places.

Lyrically… whew. Sweet plays-on-words, chiasmus, and various other types of figurative language.
I’ll have to analyze the rest in-depth. See below. These reflect my thoughts on the song, not necessarily the artist’s original intentions. But I hope I’m close… 🙂
Lyrics in quotation marks, my thoughts are normal weight.

(For best results, watch the lyrics on the video above first.)

And before I forget…

Download Peaks EP on Noisetrade
SPEAK official website
Buy their album “I Believe in Everything” on iTunes or Amazon
New stuff coming too… stay tuned on Facebook.

 

“Peaks” – SPEAK

That’s as high as it goes
That’s as loud as it gets
Take a minute to breathe
Smoke your first cigarette
Scream as loud as you want
Scream as loud as you need
That’s what the 90’s were for
May they never recede

Verse 1. He alludes to the 90’s as the decade for loudness and highness. And so the song begins in a valley. He’s looking back. He’s talking to himself, telling his past self that it doesn’t get much better along the way. Smoke your first cigarette — it’s great at first, but it becomes an addiction and the thrill of it wears off. Such is love. You inevitably fall out of the feeling. And yet, he ends with, “may they never recede.” He wants to persevere. He wants it back. He will fight for it.

 

You could take me with you
I could take you with me
Though we’re better off here
I mean ultimately

Verse 2. Now, he’s talking to his beloved. He’s taking the past and using it to propose a motion for the present. Even though it’s tough, they both have the option to continue. But they both have to make it. There are two sides. And now, instead of regretting being done with the “90’s” era of the relationship, he decides, we’re in the present for a reason.

 

We don’t need cheering up
We don’t need any more
We don’t need what we want
That’s what the 80’s were for

Verse 2 (con’t). We don’t need what we want. Entitlement is claiming that what you want is necessary, when it’s really not. The 80’s occurred even before the 90’s. The relationship might even be a whole century in the metaphor. In this stage, want and feeling drove the relationship primarily. But the 80’s are long gone. “We don’t need any more.” Any more of what? Happiness (“cheering up”)? Feelings. Emotion. Emotion isn’t necessary in the relationship. And it comes and goes. And yet, perhaps it is lacking in the current “decade.”

 

If you think you’re alive
If you think you’re a man
You were already dead
Oh before it began

Verse 3. He’s talking to his old self now. The apostle Paul says, “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself” (Galatians 6:3, KJV). If you claim to be alive, if you claim at the very beginning that you’re ready for such a thing, you’re wrong. “You were already dead… before it began.” This reminds me of the fact that, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we are physically born into spiritual death, that is, spiritual separation from God combined with a general attitude of rebellion toward him and selfish pride (see Ephesians 2:1). It is natural to be selfish. We must lay down our lives daily to love others (John 15:13). This life is abrasive. This life is an endurance climb.

 

Searching for rock
In a pile of sand
All the kind that you want
‘Till it’s all in your hands

Verse 3 (con’t). This phrase is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable of building a house on the Rock versus on sand (Matthew 7:24-27). The Rock being, of course, the Lord God, and the sand being anything else, for nothing but the Lord God is eternal, unchanging, reliable, faithful, and trustworthy (incl. emotion). Building a house on both rock and sand will still yield a shakable foundation. In the same way, if you search for the Lord’s will, even while it is obscured by your own desire for control (“it’s all in your hands”), you will only be under the illusion of control, and soon enough, your house will crumble around you, and you will be crushed under its weight. When it’s “all in your hands” and when a relationship is what you “want” (which is not what you “need”), that relationship is destined to weigh on you more weight than you can handle on your own, and then it will crumble.

 

I know, I know it’s not the easiest thing
To decide to let the easy things go
Cause it’s hard enough without
Another sign that you’ve slowed down

Lead-in 1. The easy things. What are they? The easy aspects of the relationship. As in the previous verse, the “easy” parts of the relationship are over. Now, “ultimately,” the relationship must move on. This requires letting go the idea that the relationship will continue to be easy, new, and thrilling forever. Now, the highs have “slowed down.” Letting go of the easy is a sign of this. But to hold onto the past would be an even more blatant sign. If you have something in the present, why hold onto the past? If you no longer have it, then holding onto the past is both hard and embarrassing. Presently, things are hard enough without the added burden of the expectation that the relationship should yet be as easy as it was in the beginning. It takes “a man” to continue through this phase. You thought you were a man before? Try sticking it out to the very end.

speak-band-peaks

And emotion is a terrible thing
But emotion is a terrible thing to waste
I’ve been over it again and again
And the only thing I’m over’s the time it takes

Chorus. Emotion is tiresome, especially in a relationship full of ups and downs. Would it not be better to simply forgo emotion, and to continue on embracing numbness and callousness? But wait. “Emotion is a terrible thing to waste.” He has already experienced how good emotion can be. To leave now would be to discount any pure love (desire for the other’s good) experienced in the relationship. Why waste emotion on an immature relationship? Can there not also be rich emotion even now? “I’ve been over it again and again.” This is a play-on-words with being “over” something in the past, as evidenced in the phrase that follows. There are many times when he’s wanted to just leave. But every time he forsakes his beloved, he regrets the time it took, time he could have spent in far better ways.

 

Any motion is a hell of a thing
Knowing emotion is a hell of a thing to face
You can do it with your back on the wall
But the oldest ones are always the backs that break

Chorus (con’t). The actions taken in any direction matter, even the small ones (“any motion”). Facing your emotions is difficult. But is this an action you will take? “With your back on the wall,” you act half-heartedly, with a lack of trust, a lack of commitment. “The oldest ones are always the backs that break.” Founding your relationship on old emotions (from the “80’s” and “90’s,” or the initial highs of the relationship) will leave you with a broken heart and a broken relationship. So what will your “motion” be? To endure, or to back out? If you choose the latter, you’ll avoid the effort of climbing the next mountain, but you’ll also miss out on the view — and the climb there together that will leave you both stronger.

 

And if you fight with fire
If you wrestle to sleep
May the wrestling end
Now you find what you need

Verse 4. The relationship has been turbulent. “Fighting” and “wrestling.” “Fire.” “Wrestle to sleep?” You wrestle so much that it wears you out to the point of sleeping. It’s tiresome.

speak-band2

But the wrestling doesn’t end with sleep. Ah, no. It ends when you find “what you [needed]” all along. Joy — it’s the thing that makes all the highs and lows worth it. And you just might find it.
There must be such a thing! He is claiming that he is even now discovering it. What is it? Let’s continue.

 

And you fill it with lead
And it fills you with ink
Always less than you want
Always more than you think

Verse 4 (con’t). “You fill it with lead,” like loading up a bayonet or rifle. “It fills you with ink,” like a quill. What is “it?” The relationship. Ink, when it enters the body, is poison. When you add ammunition to an already turbulent relationship, it will shoot poison into the veins of the very wrist that loaded it. “Always less than you want” — What you “wanted” all along was really what would poison you. Luke 11:11-13 comes to mind. Perhaps you’ve been asking for a snake or a scorpion, when what you “needed” was a fish or an egg. “Always more than you think.” A relationship built on selfish desire will always leave you in want. You will always end up with more of a task on your hands than you realized. This hike was longer than you thought. And the more you pretend you can handle the weight of it all, the more you will poison yourself. When you wake up after wrestling, it will be more poison than you even realized.

 

You know, you know it’s not the easiest thing
To decide to keep the easy things close
Cause it’s hard enough without
An open mind to weigh you down

Lead-in 2.Now we’re looking at the “easy” things in a different light. Yes, the “glory days” are over. Emotion is no longer front and center, nor is it the foundation. But even now, you still have a choice to “keep the easy things close.” This means not only remembering the good times, but deciding to bring “highs” back into the relationship. “It’s hard enough without an open mind to weigh you down.” An open mind about what? An open mind is good to an extent. But as CS Lewis says and I prarphrase, if your mind is too open, your brains will fall out. You must have an open mind in your expectations of the relationship. Emotions will change. Motions can change things. You can expect your emotions to have highs and lows. But that doesn’t mean you should expect to “waste” emotion only on the initial stages. Having an open mind, a lack of exclusivity and commitment to the other person’s good, will “weigh you down.” Keeping your mind closed in commitment and endurance will, paradoxically, lift you up and set you free. It’s not easy to make this decision, but not to make it will be even harder in the long run.

 

[Chorus]

And emotion is a terrible thing
Any motion is a terrible thing

And emotion is a terrible thing

Ending. One last iteration of the play-on-words. Emotion is frustrating, and he is validating this experience. But when the mountains move, it’s terrifying.

 

What is it you want?
What is it you need?

So are your mountains shifting sand dunes,
or the majestic Rockies?

Will you choose to let the easy things go?
Will you choose to keep the easy things close?

Emotion is easy in the beginning, but difficult later on.
So your relationship is different now.
Decide to make it majestic anyway.

That’s all she wrote.

Thanks for listening.
I’d love to listen to your thoughts as well. 🙂