Fun fact, the guy reading the poem was the film professor of one of the band member's. I actually emailed Constellation records about it because it wasn't sourced on the original album.
@@Icarus3X Yeah I was surprised they even answered. Wish I'd have hung onto that email because it's such a piece of music history. Sadly this was before the days of Gmail/Yahoo with storage.
It's okay, yo. It's just plain a spooky-ass thing to hear: "The world ended... and I'm about to tell you how." It's one of the scariest things to imagine.
completely agree. I could spend a lifetime trying to verbalize the effect the last two minutes have on me, but I think it's much easier to summarize the piece as beauty in aural form. All the darkness of the world some how perfectly adding up to a light at the end of the tunnel. It's pretty fucking amazing what godspeed was able to accomplish here ;)
during the California fires my girlfriend at the time couldn't get back home to her place because the fires had cut the highway off. she had to spend the night. we woke up at 2am seeing the fires coming down the hill toward us. instead of evacuating I grabbed my camera to take pictures outside and asked if she wanted to come. she said yes and she and I drove around the town as literal houses were burning and the air became so thick that we couldn't get out of the car. I felt more alive then than ever before in my life. this song reminds me of that night
Which California fires? It's like a season now. My house nearly burned down in that gender reveal fire last year. I stayed and documented it all, it was scary and epic. Like this music.
A friend of mine who was an anarchist and a water protector who went to Standing Rock took his own life recently. This song has been on my mind a lot while thinking about him. I miss my friend.
This song came on once before, during a driving trip. It was just getting dark, It was gloomy, the clouds were bigger and darker than usual, encompassing the sky. As this played and I drove down a long, country road it truly felt like the world was ending. It is ending. It ends every night we go to sleep. It's there when we wake up. The world ends, it ends for the individual. It never truly ends. But then, when nobody is left to experience it, does it exist? If no living creature is left to perceive it, is it still there? What if we had no perception, no ability to see, hear, smell or touch. Would that be the ending of the world?
I love how they've added an overly cheerful outro to this. It's as if they were like "fuck, they're gonna start shooting themselves, just add this to cheer them up again"
[Part 1 (0:00-6:37):"The Dead Flag Blues (Intro)"] The car's on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides And a dark wind blows The government is corrupt And we're on so many drugs With the radio on and the curtains drawn We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine And the machine is bleeding to death The sun has fallen down And the billboards are all leering And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles It went like this: The buildings toppled in on themselves Mothers clutching babies Picked through the rubble And pulled out their hair The skyline was beautiful on fire All twisted metal stretching upwards Everything washed in a thin orange haze I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful - These are truly the last days" You grabbed my hand And we fell into it Like a daydream Or a fever We woke up one morning and fell a little further down For sure it's the valley of death I open up my wallet And it's full of blood..
"This is it. There's a sort of fury in this music, it lies low and then whelms up and then overwhelms. The music is about tension and the subsequent release, and oh god is it beautiful. The one term that gets kicked around with this and Godspeed You! Black Emperor is 'apocalypse', and that goes so well with it - not in the oh-so-boring goth sense of the word, but more in the implications of decay and futility that the term inspires. This is not quiet desparation, however. This is music about life, and all the joy, sadness, rage, death and any other stuff you come across in your period. It's all here. the music swirls around and builds and builds, until you're so caught up in it that you can't leave until it's all over, and at about this point the music breaks. It explodes in a holy fury of brilliant white light and noise and passion, and it's a sort of surrogate emotion in and of itself. We've all been here. This is gooesbump music. It makes you die. Very possibly the best album of the '90's." - part of a review on amazon for F#A#∞, thought I'd share it as it is a beautiful sum up.
@@yerawizurdheary6009 I tracked him down and did an interview with him, he's still sitting there thinking about this situation: 3.bp.blogspot.com/_O0ch3ABb3L4/TDLumXoN1VI/AAAAAAAABvI/heojGSRKxMU/s1600/zdzislaw_beksinski_29.jpg
This song is so damn beautiful. There's the monologue of before all the shit goes down, right at the very edge. Then the song goes into apocalypse where everything is cruel and hectic. Then madness layered and suffocating eveyrthing. Then after a while, there comes acceptance. Accepting this is the end and all is mad. And with that, there was hope and the music built upward in.. hope. Rehabilitation in the smallest way. Having the strength to open your eyes and look at the destroyed rotten world. As calm as someone in hell, still suffering could be. And they die. The last part where it's lighter, is memory, looking back at life before. Seeing that they lived a full beautiful life though it wasn't perfect. And after the war, they can be at peace.
wow. with everything happening right now and america finally becoming a fascist failed police state that is getting worse by the day. i do suspect that we have reached the beginning of the end. i’m in a constant state of existential dread and deep sadness and anger but this comment was inspiring and weirdly hopeful so thank you.
What a masterpiece, every single time I hear this song it always feel like the first time. It destroys me in pieces and puts me together at the same time.
This song is truly beautiful. It's a narrative spoken only through brief vocal monologues, the titles of each section, and the music itself. I imagine that it tells the story of someone who watched as the world around him fell apart. He lost the love of his life in an apocalyptic hellscape, and must venture out into the wasteland in order for himself to survive. "Slow Moving Trains" is shortly after the initial "event", as I'll call it. The man is deeply tormented by the memories of it. He spirals down into a pit of insanity, until he finds others. He realizes that he's not alone, and that others are worse off. He finds a woman being attacked by two bandits, and a fight ensues. He kills them, and helps the woman by sparing as much food and water as he can. She tells him that there are others, like them, that have survived. The man is dismissive and uncaring, but the woman insists that he come. She sees good in him, a quality that he's lost long ago. "The Cowboy" is that journey across the wastes, attempting to survive on what little he may have left, until one final climactic battle with more vagabonds that leaves him mortally wounded. He hands the woman his gun, and tells her to leave him. She refuses. She still holds onto the notion of some kind of saving grace in this bloodied, battered world. She kisses him, and drags him through the desert, keeping him alive and conscious until finally... Outro. It does exist. Even in the destroyed and battered remains of a world once ruled by evil, they find good. Innocence. Purity. The man, who is still alive yet barely hanging on, is taken in by the people, and the woman follows along, hoping that the man that saved her life pulls through. Fin.
Godspeed & NIN really helped me get through a lot of low points in my high school days, especially afterwards. I could listen to their music and feel like I'm not the one who's felt this way.
I dated a program director for college radio when this came out and he took me to their show . They were with another band from Kranky called Labradford. One of the best shows I ever saw in a tiny bar in New Orleans. It was the Mermaid bar and the DJ recently died. His name was Rob and he programmed at WTUL and the LSU and USL radio stations for years. He was a math professor, too. RIP RR
First part: the greatest stupidity human, the war. Second: dark ambient, post traumas. Third: sad, crying vent. Final: euphoria. This band is so different, they are geniuses.
@@NGRevenant "Our current ecosystem" would have been more appropriate, right. Even if it takes a billion years after we nuke ourselves or whatever life will recover, the planet is older than we can imagine and is more durable than us.
I'm assuming the Letter form John Trane 9:16 - 10:08 is a reference to Phil Ochs and his mental breakdown in 1975. It is a sad story. Phil Ochs was a singer/songwriter and political activist who wrote songs such as "I ain't marching any more", "The War is Over", "Changes", etc. He had a manic episode in 1975 where he started referring to himself as John Butler Train and completely lost touch with reality. Then he fell into a severe depression and took his life in April 1976. There is a documentary about his life "There but for fortune". Ochs is proof that you can be a creative person and a decent person.
Ochs was not a hippy there was certain political differences between hippies and Ochs the most important being that Ochs wanted people to engage with the political system and not simply drop out. As for not fighting for his country he has a song called the Power and the Glory and Freedom Calling which are what could be considered patriotic songs. Ochs didn’t actually shoot himself he hanged himself.
When I first heard this Song, I was laying with my future husband and he told me this was his favorite band. I couldn't appreciate the music then. Now I actually hear the music and its beautiful. We saw them play in San Francisco and it was the most amazing performance. If you ever get the chance to see them live, DO IT!
I do not think it is here yet, but one does lose hope, in the face of the current events. Friends, wherever you might be, hold on, and know that someone out there, hurts just like you do, and that you are not alone. We will be fine. It is going to be okay.
Abi öncelikle burada bir Türk bulabilmek beni çok mutlu etti, ikincisi de yazdıkların için teşekkür etmek istiyorum, gerçekten ümidi kesmememiz gereken zamanlardayız.
It kinda gives me the feeling of something green sprouting out of the ashes. Or a little, cosy carneval/fare somewhere at the end of time. Everything went to shit but time moves on.
I know I will feel and understand the crushing weight of your post in time too, should I live to see those far off days. I already do. A world bereft of all. All that’s left is nothing.
I love how after the sheer darkness and devastation eating away at you for the entire track, there's a little light at the end of the tunnel in the outro. Even in the deepest and darkest of deserts, there's always a little saloon to rest your head for a while.
Holy fucking shit I just realized where the John Train thing comes from, It was actually from Phil Ochs who made the persona of John Train. He carried a weapon on him the whole time (such as a hammer or gun) because he became paranoid after robbers tried to strangle him while touring in Africa (he thought the CIA was after him). And although the the John Train persona died before 1976, the reason they put that as the year is because that's the year Phil Ochs hanged himself. Everytime I have listened to this song I have wondered about that very specific piece of art, and now I find out it was Phil Ochs. Which is mind blowing to me cause I am friends with his sister.
People are commenting about the negativity of the song. This song now has a permanent memory from me as I floated down the side of a lake, listening to it. Definitely a new favorite of mine.
I listened to this song so much years ago and forgot what it was called. Tried finding it again for so long. Can’t believe it just popped up again. The sound of desolation.
favorite part of the song is 9:00 - the tonal climax at ~10:00. Horrific, dark, beautiful vibes. Feels like the song peaks here, and it's by far my favorite soundscape in any song. To me, it feels like the mood of the song slowly changes from foreboding and lament (the poem) to acceptance of death (tonal climax at the end of Trains) to rebirth ("The Cowboy" - Outro). I get chills every time I listen to this.The song perfectly builds up to the moment at 10:00 and everything after is a winding down.
This was recorded in the 90s? That can't be right... that really can't be right xD this is too far ahead of its time to be from the 90s... man as amazing as grunge was, it overshadowed all the amazing experimental music going on... seriously...
They were adrift from time even then. I remember listening to this specific track just after 9/11, it was as they had caught the wave of history and it was dead.
There was far harsher and more advanced experimental music being made decades before this, prog-rock and early noise bands like Whitehouse immediately come to mind. Even post-rock as a subgenre had already gone through its first wave by the time F# came out. Their compositions are beautiful but aisde from the sheer length of their tracks Godspeed isn't really THAT experimental. If anything it's taking the long-established elements of classical music and just applying it to rock instruments.
+BAMF Turtle what Tom Servo said is pretty true. listen to Can, what they did in early 70's was so fucking insane and experimental and it still is to this day. There were many really great experimental bands in the 90's before GY!BE as well... For example, Bark Psychosis, Slint, C-Clamp.
+ranjit singh i had a dream like that once! i am laying down! draining out of blood! getting more weaker and weaker! as the blood filling up the dry land! last min of peacefulness i though i am going to attain! but i woke up!
This song will always remind me of you dear brother, wish you were still here, I would invite you to stay with us, even if you didn't want to. I try to make myself believe that there is life after death and that you are happy now and forever. You and I were so similar yet different, I miss you Jamie Abrahamson.
I'm sorry for your loss. Take your moment to appreciate his existence, as a creature, as a human. I love you. Thank you for working so hard. Continue to fight, it's all we can do.
This monologue and this beautifuly rusted song describes exactly Fallout 3 game! A grey feeling washed in melancholy and bizarre scenarios. A desolated and apocaliptic world, a terrible wasteland. Thanks and Godspeed!
Holy gods, this is beautiful. Like, it's unreal. Awestruck. 'Wallet full of blood' kind of makes me want to eat my heart though... What powerful imagery it paints! I'm not quite certain I am worthy of hearing this utter masterpiece. HOLYFUCKSHIT. D:
This will put you in the same down-in-the-dumps mood regardless of whether your life is going great, or at a low point. And you may or may not have it on your mind for a long time after.
This is pretty awesome. I saw these guys many years ago at The 400 Bar in the Twin Cities. They had all these pics playing as their backdrop as in the video. Incredible, memorable show!!
My wife and I have been together 5 (short but very long) years. I'll always love her and she's been the person I've wanted to lay besides when they bury me in the earth. Sadly I never saw her value early on in our marriage and it's driven a huge wedge between us. She feels hopeless and just wants to be happy again in her life. I make her miserable in alot of ways and she truly feels the strain of my career (since I'm Military) and even my day to day mood impacts her deeply. She has talked about giving our love one last effort. I pray my children do not grow up in a house without both parents present and deeply in love. I'm giving it everything I have and I hope that at each day's end that it is enough. This song has helped me realize that despite the world being a horrifying place to live and die, it's worth the unique journey that we make for ourselves. I wish everyone here good luck in their endeavors and peace each time the sun sets and rises.
I was listening to this song at 5am when suddenly a earthquake happened, i thought my world was ending. This was the perfect song for that moment, it lasted for about 15 seconds. Sometimes at 5am I comeback to listen this song, it never fails to give me goosebumps. Amazing song and amazing album.
The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides And a dark wind blows The government is corrupt And we're on so many drugs With the radio on and the curtains drawn We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine And the machine is bleeding to death The sun has fallen down And the billboards are all leering And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles It went like this: The buildings toppled in on themselves Mothers clutching babies Picked through the rubble And pulled out their hair The skyline was beautiful on fire All twisted metal stretching upwards Everything washed in a thin orange haze I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful - These are truly the last days" You grabbed my hand And we fell into it Like a daydream Or a fever We woke up one morning and fell a little further down For sure it's the valley of death I open up my wallet And it's full of blood
Just got the vinyl after listening to them for almost 20 years. The untitled outro gets me every time. Got to see them in Chicago in 2003 (the day the US invaded Iraq, which made for a very tense and memorable night) and 2012 in Athens, GA.
I like to think of the end section as Nature re-emerging from the charred and blasted landscape decades or even centuries after we have gone. It always finds a way back.
Some hear apocalypse in this song. A brooding, destructive, ruin. Others hear the sounds of protest, a gritty and real inward look at our consumerist lives. I hear love. The love of a man going though hell but he is still there and he is still following her even as the world falls apart around them.
Fun fact, the guy reading the poem was the film professor of one of the band member's. I actually emailed Constellation records about it because it wasn't sourced on the original album.
Wasn't the monologue a part of Efrim's screenplay? I always heard that the guy reading the poem was like an employee at Constellation or in the band.
@@Icarus3X That was the story I got direct from Constellation...
@@futureshocked that’s pretty cool
@@Icarus3X Yeah I was surprised they even answered. Wish I'd have hung onto that email because it's such a piece of music history. Sadly this was before the days of Gmail/Yahoo with storage.
@@futureshocked Wow, so that was a while ago then. I wonder how many other fans know that fact.
I'm thoroughly convinced that GYBE are a group of time-travelers, and this music is them reflecting on seeing the apocalypse.
The beginning eerily evokes 9/11 four years before it happened.
Sam Dryden
My uncle loves this song and reminds him of the history footage showing the bombing of Dresden.
@@samdryden7944 all of it does.
Time travellers from 2020
what is the future but a window into the past
I wish I could listen to this for the first time again
Rosie Hill .....I just did, aged 43. I’ve seen into the future & this piece is the conduit...
I am. And I feel incredibly lucky.
I heard this on a college radio station randomly at about 12 am..
First time listener here!
oh gosh, yes.... no words to describe the feeling...
"It went like this" gets me. Every. Damn. Time.
It's okay, yo. It's just plain a spooky-ass thing to hear: "The world ended... and I'm about to tell you how."
It's one of the scariest things to imagine.
@@josephschultz3301 Like now? During this Covid time..
I said "kiss me, you're beautiful" and we fell into it
Land
@@josephschultz3301 ...."28 Days, Later."
If Cormac McArthy ever had a song to tonally describe his work, I couldn’t imagine a more fitting song.
The Cowboy feels so similar to Blood Meridian to me, with that weird anti-western vibe to it.
@@Eli-ux3wr yup, and the intro just reminds me of the road.
@@BonnotAR
Ok so I’m not the only one that thinks this
wow, took the words out of my mouth.
@@BonnotAR I was reading that book for my english class, and I instantly thought of the opening monologue as soon as I started reading.
A guy with a "the end is near" sign shouted these lyrics at me one time in Santa Monica
lol vampire the masquerade
@@traversialspectrum The Gehenna is near.
Given this is exactly how the next song opens, with a raving street preacher, you're right on the money for the vibe.
The Cowboy is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard.
I love how it creates a tangible contrast with the previous parts, filled with hope and a kind of sweet acceptance
I wrote the spoken prologue on my wall when I was edgy and 13. I still don't regret it.
Mate im far from edgy but the spoken prologue really is beautiful in a sinister kind of way
I was listening to nu metal when i was 13, so you're good...
U had “the goblin is corrupt” on your wall?
@@pigsrace5892 lost my shit lmao
One of my ex girlfriends had this tattooed on her ribcage. She was the edgelord of all edgelords.
This is probably the most apocalyptic thing I've ever heard..
You should try Radiance of Shadows by Nadja.
You should try 4th of july by soundgarden.
You should try Bukowskis Dinosaur, We
ruclips.net/video/x-HtGCJKY54/видео.html
And now is the perfect(?) time to play it.
@@Helaw0lf thanks!
the outro is the finest two minutes in all of music
completely agree. I could spend a lifetime trying to verbalize the effect the last two minutes have on me, but I think it's much easier to summarize the piece as beauty in aural form. All the darkness of the world some how perfectly adding up to a light at the end of the tunnel. It's pretty fucking amazing what godspeed was able to accomplish here ;)
I've always liked it.
It reminds me of a dream I used to have of huge rolling barrels on a deserted beach with the sun setting and everything moving in slomo
during the California fires my girlfriend at the time couldn't get back home to her place because the fires had cut the highway off. she had to spend the night. we woke up at 2am seeing the fires coming down the hill toward us. instead of evacuating I grabbed my camera to take pictures outside and asked if she wanted to come. she said yes and she and I drove around the town as literal houses were burning and the air became so thick that we couldn't get out of the car. I felt more alive then than ever before in my life. this song reminds me of that night
I remember driving to SF from eureka during that time and having to dodge deer on the pch which I was terrified to drive on.
Be great to see some of them pictures. Did you upload them anywhere?
Death has a way of bringing out life in people.
the weapons from the military might melt your car next time
Be careful my friends
they lie
Which California fires? It's like a season now. My house nearly burned down in that gender reveal fire last year. I stayed and documented it all, it was scary and epic. Like this music.
I'm almost sad to say this song has aged very well and still rings very true
Especially then and now, the government is corrupt, deep state also poisoning us with their propaganda.
@@emilkubie It will continue well into the future.
Reminded me of Ukraine.
@@colonelgraff9198 lol
Palestine, further decay of the USA, apathetic towards stopping all of this nonsense.
"We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death"
Suddenly this hits me like a ton of bricks.
What does this mean?
@@jonathanbrevet1372 Capitalism is a self-consuming economic system that is going to kill us all in the pursuit of profits for the 1%.
@@PostYourJaggahog atleast its taking a few hundred years instead of less than half a century
I opened my wallet and it was full of blood
@@PostYourJaggahog crony capitalism which is pretty close to communism
10:13 onward sounds like you're relaxing on the beach while nuclear bombs go off in the distance.
Graham Kristensen I always think of a post nuclear wasteland when I listen to this song
Bittersweet
A friend of mine who was an anarchist and a water protector who went to Standing Rock took his own life recently. This song has been on my mind a lot while thinking about him. I miss my friend.
>Anarchist
You're a little bitch, and your friend was too.
@@JonnyHorseman what's the deal with this profile picture?
@@ieronim272 Look up "JC Denton profile picture"
Torr?
Rest in Power Comrade
This song came on once before, during a driving trip. It was just getting dark, It was gloomy, the clouds were bigger and darker than usual, encompassing the sky. As this played and I drove down a long, country road it truly felt like the world was ending.
It is ending. It ends every night we go to sleep. It's there when we wake up. The world ends, it ends for the individual. It never truly ends. But then, when nobody is left to experience it, does it exist? If no living creature is left to perceive it, is it still there? What if we had no perception, no ability to see, hear, smell or touch. Would that be the ending of the world?
how many drugs are you on damn son
Would there even be a world to end?
All we are is the moment
@@infexis_95 I think just decent Sativa when I typed that, got a lil edgy
I bet you think you're real clever for coming up with this. But this is a cliche friend
I love how they've added an overly cheerful outro to this. It's as if they were like "fuck, they're gonna start shooting themselves, just add this to cheer them up again"
[Part 1 (0:00-6:37):"The Dead Flag Blues (Intro)"]
The car's on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death
The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles
It went like this:
The buildings toppled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair
The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"
You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever
We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood..
"This is it. There's a sort of fury in this music, it lies low and then whelms up and then overwhelms. The music is about tension and the subsequent release, and oh god is it beautiful. The one term that gets kicked around with this and Godspeed You! Black Emperor is 'apocalypse', and that goes so well with it - not in the oh-so-boring goth sense of the word, but more in the implications of decay and futility that the term inspires. This is not quiet desparation, however. This is music about life, and all the joy, sadness, rage, death and any other stuff you come across in your period. It's all here. the music swirls around and builds and builds, until you're so caught up in it that you can't leave until it's all over, and at about this point the music breaks. It explodes in a holy fury of brilliant white light and noise and passion, and it's a sort of surrogate emotion in and of itself. We've all been here. This is gooesbump music. It makes you die. Very possibly the best album of the '90's." - part of a review on amazon for F#A#∞, thought I'd share it as it is a beautiful sum up.
Darn, I wish the authors name was on there, but it is from 1999.
: - (
apocalypse is a Greek word that means revelation...I think the term you're thinking of is Armageddon
Wasn't really a direct commentary. Was a quote.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
t. 12 year old
2020 - The soundtrack
I keep returning to a few. Fever Ray's "Keep the Streets Empty For Me" has had some serious play today.
@FBI Alypstick yeah the "men grew wings" resembles the jumpers :/
Matthew Chambers-Sinclair ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Just remember it ends with happiness and hope
If only you knew lol
Jesus Christ. I need to sit and think for a while after listening to this.
This made me laugh so hard
Still thinking?
Because I sure as hell am after four years
bro if a robot says this then we're fucked
@@yerawizurdheary6009 I tracked him down and did an interview with him, he's still sitting there thinking about this situation: 3.bp.blogspot.com/_O0ch3ABb3L4/TDLumXoN1VI/AAAAAAAABvI/heojGSRKxMU/s1600/zdzislaw_beksinski_29.jpg
This song is so damn beautiful. There's the monologue of before all the shit goes down, right at the very edge. Then the song goes into apocalypse where everything is cruel and hectic. Then madness layered and suffocating eveyrthing. Then after a while, there comes acceptance. Accepting this is the end and all is mad. And with that, there was hope and the music built upward in.. hope. Rehabilitation in the smallest way. Having the strength to open your eyes and look at the destroyed rotten world. As calm as someone in hell, still suffering could be. And they die. The last part where it's lighter, is memory, looking back at life before. Seeing that they lived a full beautiful life though it wasn't perfect. And after the war, they can be at peace.
You may like a video game titled "Lisa: The Painful"
And your reply makes me think of the Iron Man, by Ted Hughes
wow. with everything happening right now and america finally becoming a fascist failed police state that is getting worse by the day. i do suspect that we have reached the beginning of the end. i’m in a constant state of existential dread and deep sadness and anger but this comment was inspiring and weirdly hopeful so thank you.
What a masterpiece, every single time I hear this song it always feel like the first time. It destroys me in pieces and puts me together at the same time.
still loyal to it i see lol, i truly love this band
This song is truly beautiful. It's a narrative spoken only through brief vocal monologues, the titles of each section, and the music itself. I imagine that it tells the story of someone who watched as the world around him fell apart. He lost the love of his life in an apocalyptic hellscape, and must venture out into the wasteland in order for himself to survive. "Slow Moving Trains" is shortly after the initial "event", as I'll call it. The man is deeply tormented by the memories of it. He spirals down into a pit of insanity, until he finds others. He realizes that he's not alone, and that others are worse off. He finds a woman being attacked by two bandits, and a fight ensues. He kills them, and helps the woman by sparing as much food and water as he can. She tells him that there are others, like them, that have survived. The man is dismissive and uncaring, but the woman insists that he come. She sees good in him, a quality that he's lost long ago. "The Cowboy" is that journey across the wastes, attempting to survive on what little he may have left, until one final climactic battle with more vagabonds that leaves him mortally wounded. He hands the woman his gun, and tells her to leave him. She refuses. She still holds onto the notion of some kind of saving grace in this bloodied, battered world. She kisses him, and drags him through the desert, keeping him alive and conscious until finally...
Outro. It does exist. Even in the destroyed and battered remains of a world once ruled by evil, they find good. Innocence. Purity. The man, who is still alive yet barely hanging on, is taken in by the people, and the woman follows along, hoping that the man that saved her life pulls through.
Fin.
Godspeed & NIN really helped me get through a lot of low points in my high school days, especially afterwards. I could listen to their music and feel like I'm not the one who's felt this way.
At least there is some fucking good music to listen to while the world ends.
I dated a program director for college radio when this came out and he took me to their show . They were with another band from Kranky called Labradford. One of the best shows I ever saw in a tiny bar in New Orleans. It was the Mermaid bar and the DJ recently died. His name was Rob and he programmed at WTUL and the LSU and USL radio stations for years. He was a math professor, too. RIP RR
for some reason this song has a similar vibe to a game called disco elysium. both of them are masterpieces
Totally agree, I believe it's because of the similarities in the music genre (Post-Rock)
I was thinking so as well. The only other album that I think pairs well with the game is Lift Your Skinny Fists
Disco elysium has gotta be the best written game of all time. It’s like playing a book in the best possibly way.
@@metalgearsolid2substance507 Not to mention the unbelievably talented and varied voice actors.
@@BrobleYT Kim and the Deserter were my favourite performances I’d say
"The Cowboy" is amazing.
RDR2 intensified.
this screams solitude, and a kind of numb despair, i've felt like "this song" before...
good upload btw
I said: "Kiss me, you're beautiful, these are truly the last days"
First part: the greatest stupidity human, the war.
Second: dark ambient, post traumas.
Third: sad, crying vent.
Final: euphoria.
This band is so different, they are geniuses.
Yeah, that outro at the end feels like a little ray of light picking us up after all that preceding darkness
the cowboy to me is basically "all ends are beginnings, perhaps this time the story will play out differently"
Oh jeez, all of this is a direct embodiment of the situation in Kiev. I speak as a Kiev resident who was able to get a glimpse behind the scenes
Always liked this song, didn't think I'd live to see my country collapse and the confirmation that our planet is dying.
Turtleproof 11 months later its still happening
Godspeed
Collapse is a relative term. Some things are dying but others are being born.
the planet is fine it's your kids you should worry about
@@NGRevenant "Our current ecosystem" would have been more appropriate, right. Even if it takes a billion years after we nuke ourselves or whatever life will recover, the planet is older than we can imagine and is more durable than us.
/feel
Music is immortal.
I'm assuming the Letter form John Trane 9:16 - 10:08 is a reference to Phil Ochs and his mental breakdown in 1975. It is a sad story. Phil Ochs was a singer/songwriter and political activist who wrote songs such as "I ain't marching any more", "The War is Over", "Changes", etc. He had a manic episode in 1975 where he started referring to himself as John Butler Train and completely lost touch with reality. Then he fell into a severe depression and took his life in April 1976. There is a documentary about his life "There but for fortune". Ochs is proof that you can be a creative person and a decent person.
Ochs was not a hippy there was certain political differences between hippies and Ochs the most important being that Ochs wanted people to engage with the political system and not simply drop out.
As for not fighting for his country he has a song called the Power and the Glory and Freedom Calling which are what could be considered patriotic songs.
Ochs didn’t actually shoot himself he hanged himself.
+CrossHolder92 nazi fuck
Larvitar
Is loving your country a bad thing now, you imbecile?
+CrossHolder92 Sorta.
instead of doing something good for people you talk shit about man who did
It hurts.
This makes me feel bad for taking my watering can for granted :(
it will get better after a while. always does
When I first heard this Song, I was laying with my future husband and he told me this was his favorite band. I couldn't appreciate the music then. Now I actually hear the music and its beautiful. We saw them play in San Francisco and it was the most amazing performance. If you ever get the chance to see them live, DO IT!
Hope u got to see mladic live. Seeing that song live has made that show the best one I've ever seen.
Can confirm, they're amazing live.
Every time that violin cuts in at 5:23 I either shed a tear or get massive goosebumps
I do not think it is here yet, but one does lose hope, in the face of the current events.
Friends, wherever you might be, hold on, and know that someone out there, hurts just like you do, and that you are not alone. We will be fine. It is going to be okay.
I don't think it is. This is just the beginning of the end.
Abi öncelikle burada bir Türk bulabilmek beni çok mutlu etti, ikincisi de yazdıkların için teşekkür etmek istiyorum, gerçekten ümidi kesmememiz gereken zamanlardayız.
And.. 3 Covid months later under the Orange Tyrant Fascist's rule..
@@katyja8812 Still, I refuse to give away my faith in humanity. This too, shall pass.
These are truly the last days
Colin Petersen 3 years later .....
If you only knew...
If only you knew...
...how bad things really are.
@@curseyehamewhowe fall ever deeper
15:23 he never sleeps, the judge. he is dancing, dancing. he says that he will never die.
I was just thinking about that.
The ending of this song is some of the happiest sounding music to me tho lmao
I guess most people don’t get that far tho
It kinda gives me the feeling of something green sprouting out of the ashes. Or a little, cosy carneval/fare somewhere at the end of time. Everything went to shit but time moves on.
"We just recorded a grandiose piece of music, now let's get funky in the end"
@@vasvas8914 [untitled] on vinyl. LOL
the live version of this makes me bawl every time.
Ah, yes, the perfect thing to listen to at 5am
relatable
The whole thing gives me chills, but man, that spoken word bit at the beginning is just soul-crushing. Fucking excellent stuff.
The last couple minutes reminds me of people trying to rebuild society like fallout
Brings back too many memories.
I know just how you feel, my friend.
Patrick Callahan
Painfully bittersweet memories, locked in a rose-colored haze.
I know I will feel and understand the crushing weight of your post in time too, should I live to see those far off days. I already do.
A world bereft of all. All that’s left is nothing.
What happened
you grabbed my hand... and we fell into it... like a daydream or a fever...
Kwe Rose , let's bang in the radioactive fallout.
Very poorly written.
Sino Jas what’s bad about it
@@thedudeperson The awful overuse of ellipses, like a middle schooler trying to make their prose sound dramatic. dot dot dot
Orbital Butt u don’t know.... how it feels... to be... edgy... 😂 ye it is quite annoying when people overuse ellipses
This is one of the greatest Post Rock song ever.
FNV vibes, I’m all for it.
@@emilkubieGOAT of Fallout games
cried while listening to this... felt like we were going through darkness and in the end of the song there are some glimpses of light
Loving everyone here with their passion. May it get you through all this.
there's no other side to this friend, just the end.
this song always manages to make me shead a tear
Slow moving trains and the cowboy work together as two of the most interesting and atmospheric post rock pieces I've ever heard.
1. "The Dead Flag Blues (Intro)" 0:00
2. "Slow Moving Trains" 6:37
3. "The Cowboy..." 10:10
4. "The Dead Flag Blues (Outro)" 14:27
thank you
everytime the cowboy plays, i sit at my window at midnight and watch the time pass. i still do it up till this day.
that part at 12:00 and onwards is just... my god...
KxK96 i feel the same way, i wish there was like a 10 min song of that bit being explored into a full song, its just so good
This song is pure beauty.
Crazy that this comment is 10 years old and your pfp is still the album cover
I love how after the sheer darkness and devastation eating away at you for the entire track, there's a little light at the end of the tunnel in the outro. Even in the deepest and darkest of deserts, there's always a little saloon to rest your head for a while.
Holy fucking shit I just realized where the John Train thing comes from, It was actually from Phil Ochs who made the persona of John Train. He carried a weapon on him the whole time (such as a hammer or gun) because he became paranoid after robbers tried to strangle him while touring in Africa (he thought the CIA was after him). And although the the John Train persona died before 1976, the reason they put that as the year is because that's the year Phil Ochs hanged himself. Everytime I have listened to this song I have wondered about that very specific piece of art, and now I find out it was Phil Ochs. Which is mind blowing to me cause I am friends with his sister.
People are commenting about the negativity of the song. This song now has a permanent memory from me as I floated down the side of a lake, listening to it. Definitely a new favorite of mine.
I listened to this song so much years ago and forgot what it was called. Tried finding it again for so long. Can’t believe it just popped up again. The sound of desolation.
hard to imagine a song/poem as appropriate for this place and time.
favorite part of the song is 9:00 - the tonal climax at ~10:00. Horrific, dark, beautiful vibes. Feels like the song peaks here, and it's by far my favorite soundscape in any song. To me, it feels like the mood of the song slowly changes from foreboding and lament (the poem) to acceptance of death (tonal climax at the end of Trains) to rebirth ("The Cowboy" - Outro). I get chills every time I listen to this.The song perfectly builds up to the moment at 10:00 and everything after is a winding down.
From minute 10 the song is just the perfection itself.
I would gladly die listening to this song.
Play this at Earth's Funeral
I am
This was recorded in the 90s? That can't be right... that really can't be right xD this is too far ahead of its time to be from the 90s... man as amazing as grunge was, it overshadowed all the amazing experimental music going on... seriously...
They were adrift from time even then. I remember listening to this specific track just after 9/11, it was as they had caught the wave of history and it was dead.
There was far harsher and more advanced experimental music being made decades before this, prog-rock and early noise bands like Whitehouse immediately come to mind. Even post-rock as a subgenre had already gone through its first wave by the time F# came out.
Their compositions are beautiful but aisde from the sheer length of their tracks Godspeed isn't really THAT experimental. If anything it's taking the long-established elements of classical music and just applying it to rock instruments.
+BAMF Turtle what Tom Servo said is pretty true. listen to Can, what they did in early 70's was so fucking insane and experimental and it still is to this day. There were many really great experimental bands in the 90's before GY!BE as well... For example, Bark Psychosis, Slint, C-Clamp.
It'll always be contemporary as long as capitalism terrorizes us.
This song feels like the comfortable numbness one wud feel dying from loss of blood
ranjit singh uau
+ranjit singh i had a dream like that once! i am laying down! draining out of blood! getting more weaker and weaker! as the blood filling up the dry land! last min of peacefulness i though i am going to attain! but i woke up!
Or overdosing on heroin
passing out from blood loss fucking sucks
The Cowboy part is the best song in the universe , the stirring history of humanity in 3 minutes . Someone build a statue for these guys
I second that!
The statue would now be torn down...
statues are racist now sorry
Listen to this while reading Blood Meridian. It’s actually terrifying.
got it on my list to read, ill do this.
This song will always remind me of you dear brother, wish you were still here, I would invite you to stay with us, even if you didn't want to.
I try to make myself believe that there is life after death and that you are happy now and forever.
You and I were so similar yet different, I miss you Jamie Abrahamson.
Hope u r better
I'm sorry for your loss.
Take your moment to appreciate his existence, as a creature, as a human.
I love you. Thank you for working so hard. Continue to fight, it's all we can do.
honestly this is the best song ive ever heard
Haunting when I first heard this beautiful song in the early 2000’s. Beyond haunting now, it’s the hymn of our age.
It's goes to show how bad things have gotten when this album could not be more relevant. Dark times are ahead for all of humanity.
2021 - Still the soundtrack
yeah i noticed
2022 feels the same too
This monologue and this beautifuly rusted song describes exactly Fallout 3 game! A grey feeling washed in melancholy and bizarre scenarios. A desolated and apocaliptic world, a terrible wasteland. Thanks and Godspeed!
'' I open my wallet, And it's full of blood. '' Sıradan bir Godspeed You Black Emperor parçası bütün gecenizi alt üst edebilir.
Koranten narg thanks
Goondy gandy aaaaah
blood money.
what a masterpiece of a song
hope this song wakes up all the ones who are still asleep
Somewhat pertinent now...
"...these truly are the last days..."
So sad, with so many dies in the world
and it keeps getting worse
Holy gods, this is beautiful. Like, it's unreal. Awestruck.
'Wallet full of blood' kind of makes me want to eat my heart though...
What powerful imagery it paints!
I'm not quite certain I am worthy of hearing this utter masterpiece.
HOLYFUCKSHIT. D:
This will put you in the same down-in-the-dumps mood regardless of whether your life is going great, or at a low point. And you may or may not have it on your mind for a long time after.
What a time to be dead.
Listening to this while a thunderstorm is rolling through is one of the most apocalyptic feelings ever. And I love it
This is pretty awesome. I saw these guys many years ago at The 400 Bar in the Twin Cities. They had all these pics playing as their backdrop as in the video. Incredible, memorable show!!
My wife and I have been together 5 (short but very long) years. I'll always love her and she's been the person I've wanted to lay besides when they bury me in the earth. Sadly I never saw her value early on in our marriage and it's driven a huge wedge between us. She feels hopeless and just wants to be happy again in her life. I make her miserable in alot of ways and she truly feels the strain of my career (since I'm Military) and even my day to day mood impacts her deeply. She has talked about giving our love one last effort. I pray my children do not grow up in a house without both parents present and deeply in love. I'm giving it everything I have and I hope that at each day's end that it is enough. This song has helped me realize that despite the world being a horrifying place to live and die, it's worth the unique journey that we make for ourselves. I wish everyone here good luck in their endeavors and peace each time the sun sets and rises.
I hope your wife and you are doing well sir, i wish the best for you and your kids
We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine... and the machine is bleeding to death.
P.E. was an alright experiance, I suppose.
How did you feel today in PE
Goddamnit you made me laugh.
h o l l o w
Can't believe this track is over 20 years old!
I was listening to this song at 5am when suddenly a earthquake happened, i thought my world was ending. This was the perfect song for that moment, it lasted for about 15 seconds. Sometimes at 5am I comeback to listen this song, it never fails to give me goosebumps. Amazing song and amazing album.
The car is on fire, and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death
The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles
It went like this:
The buildings toppled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies
Picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair
The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful -
These are truly the last days"
You grabbed my hand
And we fell into it
Like a daydream
Or a fever
We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood
Whatever the connotations of this song, it's truly incredible. It's pretty much every disaster summed up in a series of chords and notes.
here from punk band Catharsis's album "Passion". They quoted this song a lot.
Just got the vinyl after listening to them for almost 20 years. The untitled outro gets me every time. Got to see them in Chicago in 2003 (the day the US invaded Iraq, which made for a very tense and memorable night) and 2012 in Athens, GA.
my Airbnb goest, Michael from Germany, turned me on to them.. Thank you, Michael!!!
I like to think of the end section as Nature re-emerging from the charred and blasted landscape decades or even centuries after we have gone.
It always finds a way back.
It’s coming. This song is going to be a reality.
Thank you to the guy that made the DoomPaul meme with this song's lyrics that brought me to this song over a decade ago.
Can you send me a link with a meme, please?
spoiler alert: the wallet is full of blood
Everyone's is... nature of the beast...
Damn it I was hoping for peanut butter cookies and you ruined it.
nearly died laughing at this
capital. dead labour.
Pure bliss , profound, suspense like no other, dark and twisting with a splash of joy and hope in trying times
"The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel" predicted Teslas spontaneously combusting
Ever heard of metaphor kid?
@@fuckcensorship69 ever heard of a joke dude?
watch out for fuckcensorship69 he considers this serious business
Some hear apocalypse in this song. A brooding, destructive, ruin. Others hear the sounds of protest, a gritty and real inward look at our consumerist lives. I hear love. The love of a man going though hell but he is still there and he is still following her even as the world falls apart around them.
"I need to watch things die. From a good safe distance. Vicariously I live while the whole world dies." (Tool Vicarious)
I think of 9/11 when I hear this song.
I think of mcdonalds signature collection mmmm especially the spicy one
Yes... so one and the same as the apocalypse.