LogFAQs > #928253334

And by unintentional coincidence, we go from "artist who shares too much" to "artist who may not have shared enough".



====================

#141 [#225]:

Name: Trains
Origin: Porcupine Tree
Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UHwkfhwjsk" data-time="

Nominator: NBIceman (11/15)

(6, 4, 6.7)

[Adequate.]

Well, after complaining so often last topic about songs being ruined by the creator explaining every single line, it's kinda nice to find a song where no one seems to know what it is about.

Is it just a nostalgic love song?

A song about incest?

A song about a serial killer?

Or possibly all of the above?

...I don't know how they managed to make a song that was somehow everything to everyone, but they seem to have done so. Ironically, I kinda wish there was a bit more of a consensus on what this was, so I knew what emotion the creator was even trying to go for.

[Final Thoughts: Oh, and now here's discussion about how it's really about necrophilia.

You would think there would be a greater consensus between "this is a nostalgic love song" VS "this is about him killing and raping his cousin's corpse".

...Well then. As many times as I've complained about songs having no mysteries to them, I can't fault this song for being the exact opposite. For now, I'm just going to go with the least horrible explanation: Steven Wilson says trains are a metaphor for a nostalgic childhood because trains make him nostalgic and not read any further into it.

......Though the album is about his interest in serial killers, child molesters, and wife beaters so such a song would probably be out of place?

.........I'm going to go somewhere else now, thank you.]

[Even Later Edit: Honestly, I doubt there's anything particularly sinister in this track. I think people are just reading what they want into it; it's an album of DARKNESS, therefore this song must be DARK and it's so concealed that it must be ULTRA MEGA DARK.

But, like, the artist himself directly said the trains are a metaphor for nostalgia because trains make him nostalgic. If he's openly admitted this album deals with his interest in serial killers and the like, why would he bother making up a cover story to disguise the true nature of the song?

My interest in the song is a bit variable. It is occasionally fun to try to anaylze the song from all angles and to see how everyone has their own pet theory on the meaning. That's something I like and this song offers more of that than any nomination from either topic. It's certainly going to be one of the more memorable songs.

What winds up causing the song to drop now actually has nothing to do with any of that; it's more that I find the song runs out of things to do around the three minute mark--the vocalizations that follow aren't my thing, the highly subdued part that follows them is also not my thing, and I don't think we have any new lyrics when the song picks back up. I'm sure it's all deeply symbolic and what not, but...it's not symbolism I'm interested in unpacking, in any interpretation of the song and I think I'd probably switch to a different song around the 3 minute mark instead of listening to the whole song, were I not in a topic where I had to play all of it.

...That the song still rises this high up in spite of my issues with the later portions of the song speaks volumes to the quality of the rest of the song.]

====================
---

A not very secret alt account for when Raetsel wants to be a pony