Approaching Curves, Telling Blurs

Rise Against
‘The Approaching Curve’

The music blared with a claming frequency
The speakers seeped the sounds of ambient keyboards and light percussion
Creating a seductive soundtrack to out midnight drive through curtains of blackness
The window were cold to the touch
Reflecting the icy conditions in our immediate extremity
Salt stains and fingerprints littered the glass
Streaks of melting snow cascaded down its length
The music pulsed louder but gentle
Like the faraway squeal of a pot of boiling water
The skyline was glowing faintly with vague hints of an impending dawn
The car raced along a painfully straight stretch of road
She hadn’t so much as turned the steering wheels two degrees in the last twenty minutes
Nor had we spoken

As we were
So perfect, so happy
They’ll remember only our smiles
Cause that’s all they’d seen
Long since dried, when we are found
Are the tears in which we are drowned
As we were
So perfect
So happy

“Why are you doing this?”
She spoke as if not expecting a response
Her voice penetrated the still air of our speechless driv
So suddenly that my heart had jumped
“I’m not doing anything” I said
But I didn’t believe that myself
“This is what’s best for me, for you, for us”
Or maybe just for me I thought
As a tear formed in the pit of her eye
The music poured through the speakers and we were losing ourselves in the cadence
She looked down momentarily and closed her eyes a bit longer than a standard blink
Then she was crying
Then she was shouting
Then I was shouting
Now pouring confessions
Having no answers or solutions
We barely even knew the questions

As we were
So perfect, so happy
They’ll remember only our smiles
Cause that’s all they’d seen
Long since dried, when we are found
Are the tears in which we are drowned
As we were
So perfect
So happy

Don’t put me underground
I was meant for a life somewhere else
Please love give me the wheel
Before both of our hearts you will steal tonight

Our cracking voices become part of the music
The car pressed on faster through the nights as our voices lowered
The cadence again overtook the air
Up ahead there was a curve approaching
She made no indications of stopping

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I’m doing something new in this entry. I’ve been doing a lot of English essays for the past few weeks, and I thought, “How cool would it be to write on for a rock song I really like?”

So I thought I’d give it a try. The song is ‘The Approaching Curve’ by ‘Rise Against’ from the album ‘The Sufferer & The Witness.’
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‘The Approaching Curve’ is a song of despair, of sadness and stagnant relationships. It is a lyrical interpretation of the inevitability of death, and the mask we put on ourselves in our everyday lives. Using the imagery of a car traveling on a highway, it successfully tackles those ideas, and concentrates it into a focused microcosm of human life, the end of a love relationship.

Using a first-person view for its narrative vehicle, this allows the listener to easily feel a sense of strong empathy towards the singer. The use of such a narrative device also allows for a very personal account of the story, as the listener is privy to the singer’s thoughts, but not to the other person in the story. The listener is moved to symphatise with the singer, not the other person. The listener is led to believe that the singer is justified in ending the relationship, even though the singer admits, ‘this is what’s best for me,’ and ‘maybe just for me I thought.’ The guilt shown by the singer further pulls away the listener from the girl, seeing her as unreasonable, irrational and emotionally unreliable afterwards.

The imagery of traveling is used extensively. The ‘painfully straight stretch of road’ signifies the state of the relationship which has gone stale and stagnant, obviously going nowhere, and is no longer exciting to both parties. ‘The vague hints of an impending dawn’ symbolizes a new start that has been waiting for the singer, of which is not yet clear to him, and as we later find out, he never achieves. The stereo of the car, blaring ‘with a calming frequency,’ is the symbolization of the relationship as a façade to the outside world. The relationship seemingly has been having troubles long before, but it is covered underneath smiles i.e. calming music. Music itself can be a façade. An image of created outer being. The music is covering all the cracks in their relationship – ‘our cracking voices became part of the music.’ It’s the smiles ‘that’s all they’d seen.’ The couples’ friends and family don’t and cannot see the buried sadness and stagnancy of the relationship because both of them are good at hiding it.

The inevitability of death is foreshadowed in the chorus. The listener finds out, after the second chorus, that it is about the impending death of the couple, which can be speculated to be from a fall off a cliff into a river, hence ‘the tears in which we are drowned.’ This also tells the listener how much sadness has been present in the relationship, so much so that they are drowned in it. The death by drowning is also foreshadowed by the image of ‘the faraway squeal of a pot of boiling water,’ of which ‘boiling signifies the end or climax of the story, the boiling point of the relationship, and of course, their impending doom. When ‘she made no indications of slowing,’ the listener is given the impression that the girl does not intend to give up the relationship. She is determined to hold on to it as long as she can. She wants to hold the steering wheel. When the singer asks her ’please love, give me the wheel,’ he is telling that the relationship has gone out of control, and she has got to give it up. And of course she doesn’t, which leads to their doom.

‘The Approaching Curve’ is the exploration of human emotions and the irrationality of it. It is the story of unwillingness to give up the facades of everyday life. The desperation to hold on to things that might not be beneficial to hold on to, but are the only things we can and want to hold on to. It is a song of despair, death and stagnancy.

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So there. Of course it's not as long as it should be (it's about 700 words instead of ~1000) and I didn't really do much effort to organise or plan it. I just wrote it on the top of my head.

Haha. It's a bit pointless, and really time-wasting, but it's fun

Signing out

Over and out