Fiobos felt particularly inspired by this song – perhaps it’s a right feeling that I’ve had when I first wrote it – that this could be the best of the album. He wrote a whole essay on how he felt when reading the poem and after the first listen. I think it’s beautiful, as his work on the graphics this time (or any other time)
– Hamlet
CAN YOU SWIM?
Have you ever felt the arrival of something terrible?
Something that you cannot stop or avoid? Something that is certainly going to happen,
and all you can do is, let it happen.
Imagine being underwater, sinking. There is no way for you to be saved. You can only die.
How would you react? Denial? Acceptance? Regret? Image having the insight of seeing
a war unravelling. All the puzzles’ pieces are there; people do all the wrong moves to let
it happen. You cannot do anything about it.
The feeling of getting drowned. This is the message I wanted to show on this short
Portrait series. How do you deal with the inevitable? Do you let it go through you? Can
you accept that there is nothing in your power to stop it? People would say that
letting go would let you free, bending with the wind so you wont brake.
But can you do something about it? Can you resist? Can you carry the burden?
Can you swim? What is the use of carrying a heavy rock if you can’t even lift it up and
throw it? The rock of course, is Emotion, information, reaction.
This rock is a heavy burden. Many people carry it until it breaks their arms. If you can’t
do something about it, why carry the burden? Can you throw the stone?
Why did you try swimming when you knew you could not?
How can you save yourself? Well, if you really want to know.
Do not drink the poison all at once. Pick your poison, build resistance.
But don’t let it kill you.
There are many ways to die. You can even die and still go to work tomorrow.
You get to figure that out for yourself.
How much can you handle?
Can you swim?
– Fiobos
It’s interesting, that upon the very first read of the poem, which later became Imperial, Fiobos came up with the image of drowning. Come to think about it 10 years later, after the reflection from the distance can be done, I guess it’s a very accurate metaphor of what otherwise is quite literally described in the lyrics. This song was probably one of the most personal in my book – as much as the egocentric Transport Aerian could have non-personal songs at all, but even in the title I allowed myself a dark irony regarding my own sad origin, a misfortune to be born in a wrong time and in a wrong place, and – given the sea imagery of the text, – a subtle reference to J. Brodsky’s Letter to a Roman friend.
While the majority of references in the text are quite obvious and could be taken literally, one important element was there, which became apparent from 2015 on, and manifested itself louder and louder each next album: a foreboding of war. From this, to Therianthrope’s Last Years of Peace, to Skywound.
How the next one will be? Will there be the next one?
