About the series

TIPS: You should not always listen to my tips because they could change from one day to the other due to the simple fact that my ideas shift and evolve as fast as you’d say… “Quidditch!” – This post is as long as Episode 1, so get comfortable ?

Anyway, the interview below – which you should absolutely watch because it is really interesting – Marko Saaresto gives us his personal feelings on Clearview, therefore ending the interview with a cliffhanger. Just saying! Yours Truly has made a transcript in her notebook and here is an excerpt of it:

“Clearview is a clear view on things that you are unclear about basically, because […] it’s really, simply said it’s about asking. If you think you know something, that’s fine, but if you know you don’t know something, how do you get a clear view? It’s by asking. So, that’s basically what it’s about. But that’s a, I think also, a very big topic that we could really talk, like, a lot.”  – Marko Saaresto, August 2017 (transcript by Yours Truly)

The idea behind the series comes of course from Marko. Since I am a spur of the moment kinda gal, at least when it comes to my creativity, I had not planned how often I should write the episodes when I started this self-imposed challenge. In any case, this series is about uncovering what I call a mystery… the magic behind Poets of the Fall‘s creation. Who am I kidding? I might, nonetheless, discover a pattern. ? Consequently, I am wondering about this: How do you go from the question/answer – “how do you get a clear view? It’s by asking.” – to writing the songs as we know them today. Hope you’ll enjoy the reading and don’t forget to rate this article with the little hearts on top of the post! I’ll sure appreciate it ?

Source video: Dukascopy TV - Switzerland - Marko Saaresto, Poets of the Fall video interview, posted on Facebook on 15/08/2017

Episode 2 – The Game

Instagram

The cool thing about social media is that you get to discuss all kind of stuff with total strangers. A few days ago, @poetsofthefallfanpage posted a picture of Marko with the quote:

See the PUPPET MASTER laugh

A follower of that page, robin_vanes asked an interesting question: Who is the Puppet Master? with the personal answer that he/she might be a god or some kind of spirit watching over us. Interesting, right! I could not let pass this and I posted my own view on the matter. Maybe, the Puppet Master is within us all as we are always two sides of the same coin… the good & the bad to make it simple. Our inner struggles against our own puppet master to make it through life, one choice after another, sometimes he/she wins and sometimes the best version of ourselves does. It is a rather dark twisted idea, but it makes sense to me at least ? What do you think? The answer I received was somewhat a challenge. Interesting too, I like the idea. But what about the pale horse? to which I answered: well, the pale horse could be from the chessboard we are all on, but since there is no pure black and white in life, the horse is not white but pale… I cannot play chess, and yet I do in a matter of speaking with myself… anyway, the puppet master’s astride a pale horse kind of suggests that he is not all evil after all. He might stand for temptation, self-doubt, for example, sending trials our way… […]

The Game to the Clearview theme

Trying to unravel the meaning behind a song is no small feat. We all have our own views on what a song means to us and there can be as many interpretations as there are listeners. In the end, though, it helps to keep in mind the album’s theme:

how do you get a clear view? It’s by asking – Marko Saaresto

While Drama for Life is rather straight forward with its message, The Game explores another avenue of self-insight. It is not so much about the madness within and more about self-sabotage, by the means of underlining how easy we let ourselves be manipulated. Who is the Puppet Master? I think that, unless we get a straight answer from Marko himself, we all have our idea of who he/she is. I will stick to what I came up with so far because it makes the most sense to me and it fits best with the chronology of the album’s story telling. The over-simplified option being that the Puppet Master stands for society and its rules. I suppose that is the game that we are playing…

There is no pure good or evil in this life – but for a few exceptions. In other words, nothing is all black or all white… we all live in a grey zone and we must go through it every single day making an effort not to get burnt. It is the doom of mankind I suppose, but as thinking individuals, we have the ability to turn such a doom around. The Game is what happens if we do set ourselves up for Drama for Life (New Series – Poets of the Fall, Clearview simply said – 1st episode)… the direct consequence of the “easy way”, it is also a clue on what we tend to forget. What should be important… ultimately, the end game is love, it always is. Not power, not control… love. How we go about it depends on the way we chose… how we define ourselves is directly linked to our actions.

What kind of clear view are we trying to get here? Is it about who we are? Is it about where and how we fit in?… asking away to get a sense of what we are looking for… get a clear view of the path we are on, maybe.

Like birds of paradise or the Japanese puffer fish, we show off, parade, sit up and beg to be noticed… to be loved. If we were birds or fishes, it would be the call of nature and we would actually be genetically programmed to do just that (at least, the guys would). But we are no birds or fishes. Just a second, now! But we are… except that we also have the ability to think for ourselves, make a conscious decision that will pave our path to love. Easy! So, what’s going awry then? It is easier to follow trends, fashion, society’s definition of success and aim for that than getting around to facing ourselves and asking loud and clear: “Who are you?” That is the question Marko could be talking about… “Who are you and who decides on who you’re gonna be?“

Love is a powerful drive. Men and women are basically acting the same way to achieve the same goal: get noticed to be loved. Often enough, it can be superficial and fake, and it could end badly, which makes:

The puppet master laugh, astride a pale horse […]
Reading out the epitaph of our pointless wars
For love we will tear us down

Life is a chess board, but unlike the pieces of a chess board, we turn grey. We try too hard to be what we are not… and that is the easy way. It sounds strange, but it beats struggling to find out where we fit on the board. We all fit, but not the way society would have us believe we do… we get confused because we let ourselves become puppets of society. So what? The puppet master is society after all? I’d say yes, partly. Because, after all, who makes society?

We are all Puppet Masters. One way or another, we manipulate, we cheat, we lie to get what we want… if not to others, to ourselves. Is what we want the same as what we need? There are many questions to be asked. They are, without a doubt, many answers to be had. Are they the right questions? And is there any right answer? We manipulate ourselves in believing the lies we made up as a society: self-sabotage by the collective consciousness. What we want is pre-determined by rules and social behaviours, which have become more of self-absorption and the cult of the self. “Who are you?“

And take another photograph, for selfie intercourse

We are the Puppet Masters of our own demise and all this time we forget about the essential: LOVE. It is not for sale, not a game of wits, not either a power struggle.

Love could be our crown.

It is mine! It defines me and this is how I fit in my own version of society… because, I believe, that we all have one. What about you?

Hope you enjoyed this post! If you did, and as I said at the beginning, don’t forget to rate with the little hearts at the top of it.

Until next time! ?