Song of the Day Redux, Day 45: Prize Fighter Inferno: Who Watches The Watchmen?

The Prize Fighter Inferno: Who Watches the Watchmen?

The eighth track and only single of Claudio's 2006 PFI album My Brother's Blood Machine. We have a music video for this song, and Claudio has played it live in Neverender SSTB along with the rest of the band.

The Content: The victims, Cecillia and the twins, stumble upon a shed in the woods as they run away from home. And they find out that there is an evil murder machine inside. They run to try to get away and tell someone, but find that the Bleam brothers have been watching them the whole time. They restrain the victims ("lay down, relax") and begin the process of 'soul extraction' via blood machine ("what you thought once was yours, is ours now.")

This remarkably upbeat song is possibly one of the darkest ones of all: it's the torture and murder of children by other children. They have some second thoughts ("in the call of her screams, should we leave and let them be? Is her life worth as much as we once wished to believe?") Cecillia is left out in the snow, tortured and bloodied, as they try to figure out what to do with her. I think that in the end, that Gunner Recall and the McCloud boys have both been dismembered and fed into the Blood Machine, but Cecillia is allowed to go free, barely alive, and a shadow of her former self.

"Who Watches The Watchmen" is a philosophical question (quis custodiet ipsos custodes?) about the nature of authority. The Bleam Brothers have self-appointed themselves as God's workers, and no one regulates them; they are loose agents, doing something profoundly wrong in the name of something they feel is right. Claudio likely picked up the sentiment from the profoundly influential graphic novel Watchmen, which was based on this question (he has referenced Watchmen before, as far back as Shabutie.)

The Music: This upbeat song mainly uses synths, though there's an acoustic guitar in there too. Claudio has a pretty neat electric drum beat going on there. He layers on the synths. There's something that sounds like a sitar during the chorus. This song never gets slow or dark - it's delightful and upbeat the entire time, with a wistful riff and happy beat, and lyrics that on the surface sound almost pleasant, until you realize what's going on in the story and how profoundly dark it is. Lyrical dissonance to the max.

The Part: Is it or isn't so? Am I dead now here in the snow?

There's a light in this shed
that should help you find your way,
And through this door you deserve
a beating through the Machine.
And little did you once know,
in the race for the telephone,

In the dark they have 
watched us from here beyond the grave.
To bare the mark of His work 
are the Watchmen of our ways,
That which we feels untrue,
if it's me then it isn't you.
Lay down, relax, come on, how?
What you thought once was yours
is ours now.

Stay with me to guide this dream,
Before they bury me.
I'll be waiting up all night for you,
In a nightmare that was made for me.
Stay with me to guide this dream,
Before they bury me.
I'll be waiting up all night for you,
In a nightmare that was made for me

In the call of her screams 
should we leave and let it be,
Is her life worth as much
As we once wished to believe?
So is it or isn't so 
Am I dead now here in the snow?
With the form of a blade
will then justice be engraved?
To bare the walk on the way 
to the killer and his blade. 

So is it or isn't so?
Am I dead now here in the snow?
Lay down, relax, come on, how?
What you thought once was yours
is ours now.

Stay with me to guide this dream,
Before they bury me.
I'll be waiting up all night for you,
In a nightmare that was made for me.
Stay with me to guide this dream,
Before they bury me.
I'll be waiting up all night for you,
In a nightmare that was made for me

You're right or you're wrong
Oh oh, you're right or you're wrong

Next up: Wayne Andrews, The Old Bee Keeper