MASSIVE CONTRAST // protomartyr - Half Sister // Composer Reaction & Analysis

[@michaeledwards6683]

lyrically, this is one of my favorite songs of all time so i will do a break down analysis here: verse 1 makes strong effort to point out that pontius pilate is a “middle manager”, essentially making him a symbol for bureaucracy. within bureaucratic systems, everything serves a well-established purpose and anything that affronts that purpose becomes an obstacle to be run over. jesus was that obstacle since he spoke a new truth, something that wasn’t established or (in their eyes) serving the greater good. verse 3 essentially recounts the same kind of story. a misanthropic horse doesn’t serve the established purpose we’ve deemed horses to have. therefore, the establishment (in this case, humans) stomped him out and attributed his truth to mere laziness. verse 2 showcasing an ephemeral spector speaks to that obfuscating of deeper truths that don’t serve the established purposes we’ve deemed everything to have at this point in civilization. they seem so small that it’s easier to stomp it out or ignore it entirely to ease the cognitive dissonance than to engage with it. still, these truths remain somewhere within us once we engage with them for the first time. they cannot be forgotten (at least subconsciously) and are unforgiving in their apathy towards the lies that serve as load-bearing walls in our societies. so in a way, the fact that one of these stories is a straight up lie is one of these purposeless truths that one may try to stamp out if they were to want to take the song at face value, and believe me, i felt the urge. still, the truth was trying to reach me, and i decided to let her in.

[@Cy709]

This album front to back is amazing. I feel you need to listen to it that way as well to truly appreciate it. My first listen through in its whole just blew me away.

[@adriannydahl2214]

one my favourite bands, this album is amazing, also love the next album ultimate success today

[@oweb7754]

In a similar vein to this it would be awesome to see you react to Eyesore by Women off their album Public Strain. They debuted at similar times and play around with some similar sonic pallets and instrumental timbres but to very different effects. Lots of interesting compositional decisions like a circular guitar coda used similarly to this song.

[@SpeedOfThought1111]

i love this song and the triumphant feel towards the end.

[@kasperkauhanen4420]

My take on the lyrics is that the song is ultimately about our complex relationship with truth. Sometimes the truth doesn't matter all that much or is in a different part of a narrative than you might think. What the Bible tells us about Jesus, for example, may or may not be true, but the meaning, comfort and purpose people take from that is real. Whether that half-sister was truly reaching out in some psychic way or the apparition was some manifestation of the man's implied guilt about his half-sister, the half-sister and the guilt the man felt were real. The horse story might be made up, but the emotional core of it, that sometimes you can do amazing things and be none the better for it, is true. At the same time, some truths also will not be denied or ignored and may come back to haunt you if you try. Jesus got crucified and lives on through a major religion founded upon him to this day, the Roman empire is long gone. The man of the second verse forgot or avoided thinking about his half-sister and got haunted by her apparent specter in the garden. The horse story is a fiction but the moral of it is that if you blindly trust that doing amazing or good things will always reward you, you might get hurt, and that is true.

[@CriticalReactions]

This is fantastic! I think this is the intended reading of the lyrics as it lines up with all of what I thought it was about but missed in the verses.

[@michaeledwards6683]

very eloquent. i worded it differently in my comment, but this is essentially my understanding of the song as well.

[@user-pepsibottlecocacolaglass]

yessssss thank you lisa this is one of my favourite songs of all time... i am so excited for the analysis >:)

[@user-pepsibottlecocacolaglass]

loved the analysis as always! protomartyr are one of my favorite bands and while in my book you've already experienced their lyrical and compositional peak with this song i hope you are intrigued enough to potentially check out more. on the paradox of the third verse being a fabricated story - joe has stated on this album that he very deliberately tried to create an unreliable narrator (most explicitly in the opening song on the album, a private understanding, which i would consider (fittingly) a sister track to this one) and i think that unreliable narrator serves many different purposes throughout the album. the concept that the truth is trying to reach you is probably the most sincerely held sentiment in the whole album, so to me the lyrical paradox here represents the difficulty and obfuscation of trying to live by the truth in real life, whether it be a collective truth or one's own personal truth. protomartyr as a band are fairly critical of organized religion at points so using the story of christ is also sort of ironic in that way. i think that using the truthfulness of the text to undermine the song's own purported message mirrors the societal undermining of individual and collective ideals and wellbeing explored throughout the album.

[@PiEndsWith0]

I think you can consider all the strophes true. Some are true in the sense that they happened as laid out. Some are true in the sense that the story itself is true-shooting the messenger who telegraphs our failings. After they fall out of line, having received inspiration from above (the horse and lightning) Some are true on the account of faith. The point of truth being our half sister is that we are related to it, directly. And as any good relative, they try to reach us when we fall. So it's a link we can't sever even if we really don't understand it in full. That'd be my read. Great pick

[@wrightcarl1181]

My favourite band. Heavily influenced by The Fall I would say

[@hanspenner535]

Hell yeah

[@MrWestie1985]

BTW this song fucking rocks🤘

[@MrWestie1985]

Dude please do 'She Moves She' by four tet 👍