Poets of the Fall – Quote from Desire

On my way to work, I was playing music – read Poets of the Fall here – really loud (or at least loud enough so I could still hear the engine) and as the playlist went on, suddenly these words hit me yet again – I’ve had had previous cases of over-thoughts bugging me with the same words:

What never moves, is never still

Now, I don’t about you, but this phrase kind of occupied my neurones for a while… until I caught the twist if one can call that a twist (it wouldn’t be if your mother tongue was English, of course, since it is not mine here you go!) Anyway, this reminded me of a documentary about Earth’s journey that I watched about four years ago. I found another documentary today, which attempts an explanation about our current speed. I am no mathematician or scientist, and whether it is accurate or not, the actual idea is “mind-boggling” and got my head spinning. Think about it, the guy in the video is arguing that even if you are not moving at all, you cannot be still because you are in fact moving at 1’000 mph plus all the other movements he goes through. We are moving at 1’280 km/second… just by sitting comfortably still on our couch. This is rather a challenging train of thought to start your day with, I can tell you, so thank you, Marko, for this simple yet effective double meaning phrase, quite a treat indeed!

So back to the actual quote from Poets of the Fall’s song “Desire“. What does the verb “to move” mean? I am not kidding, it is the question I asked myself while driving because I could not fathom the meaning of this awesome phrase – I love contradictions, they make life more interesting. The dictionary gives, among others, these short definitions:

• to set or keep in motion: the only definition I could think of at first.
• to affect with emotion
• to affect with tender or compassionate emotion; touch.

What never moves… everything that does not touch us or affect us with any kind of emotion, that is what I understand.
Is never still… so, is this figurative or literally speaking? and in this sentence is “still” an adjective or an adverb… geek much, yes! so what? If it were an adverb, it could mean “without sound or movement; quietly“, no this does not fit the bill. “Still” is definitely an adjective, therefore, the phrase implies some kind of perpetual movement. In other words, everything that does not touch us changes all the time which also means that everything that does touch us follows the same flow. As you well understand, I voluntarily took this quote out of context, so what about we put it back in context for a while?

The song is about desire, you’d figured out that much funnily enough, hadn’t you. What is desire? Does the song talk about lovers’ desire or about desire in its larger meaning? I think the latter, but I can think wrong – as I most often do, but art is so subjective, I just follow what my heart tells me. Thus doing, I come to the understanding that resisting desire becomes a power struggle within oneself. Desire like love is uncontrollable and “overpowering” (first verse). I guess desire does not go so well along with a control freak for instance; and yet, it rules over all of us and there is not much we can do unless we give in. Whether we want it or not, it is here to stay as long as we’re humans. Of course, we are good at denial so we run from desire most of our lives because it is so overwhelming and I suppose that we get scared at times too. However, it is such a hopeless case. Desire changes us for good or ill, and ultimately we all fall in its net. “I fear I’m losing all control” (last verse / bridge(?)). The song speaks for itself and I have no wish to over analyze, for it would spoil everything – besides, I was told by my friend J. that I should stop over analyzing, so… check!

I think I got most of the buzzing off my head so I leave you for now in the company of Poets of the Fall with Desire.