The Mechanisms - High Noon Over Camelot - 18 - Once and Future King (Lyrics)

|This song is based on the folk song "The Snow it Melts the Soonest".|
Characters:
Mordred - Ashes O'Reilly
If you don't know them already, check out the Mechanisms website: themechanisms....
And buy this album on bandcamp: themechanisms....

[@AndRocProductions]

WAIT ASHES PLAYS MORDRED??????????????? HOW MANY WORLDS HAVE THEY BURND AT THIS POINT-

[@SingingSealRiana]

enough one would think

[@battyrae1398]

@@SingingSealRiana its never enough

[@TheRealEvilkitten3]

ashes said there's enough gasoline for all the worlds. and they were right

[@aduroatrox]

All of them

[@MaggieBug417]

I wanted to ask how you didn’t realize Mordered was played by Ashes but I didn’t realize Jonny and Tim were two different people until like TTBT

[@skiesquiggles7319]

Immediately watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail to achieve peak understanding.

[@lawrencelink9230]

I would watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as well

[@imlovedavepetab3374]

3:18 He may be falling into a damn sun, but I have fucking CHILLS.

[@pussinboots9983]

Damn, sun.

[@sashaneumann]

Jesus this is so tragic. Arthur was on the verge of doing something great with his lovers by his side, and at the last moment he was attacked by his own son, and he didn't even get the mercy of dying after watching his loves die and his world destroyed. Fucking brutal... I love it. Edit: And also Mordred??? He went through hell for something he believed in, unrecognized by his own father, watched it all come crashing down because of a misunderstanding he's not even aware of, and was driven to abandon all of his hopes and wreak havoc worse than those he tried to convince to make peace. Oof.

[@dragoncatentertainment7462]

Just finished the album for the first time. Well. I guess it’s not really a true mechs story album if most of the characters don’t end up dead lol

[@anemoi6803]

True, but god, this one is so fucked. At least with all the others there's either a hopeful note or there's this level of separation. With this, nah, they're dead, and it was so close to being ok. Nobody had to die, whereas in the other stories it could only end with their deaths

[@bread7610]

Same tho

[@jafuncle]

@@anemoi6803 Sticking to the Arthurian Legends though, there's a little hope: "As it burns so far above a second star's shining. While his world it dies, he's left alive, the Once and Future King." Seems that Arthur, in his stasis pod, is drifting towards a new destiny.

[@machaelamcqueen883]

@@jafuncle If you believe the "Everything is connected" theory his new destiny is to eventually become King Cole

[@FH-rp6zs]

I like to think he eventually crash-landed on Earth and his attempts to explain himself despite a language and culture barrier turned into our Arthurian legends.

[@pheo4156]

This is the saddest song ive ever listened to from the mechanisms

[@charliem.1368]

i dunno, man, i always cry during drunk space pirate.... what SHALL we do with a drunk space pirate? 😢

[@pheo4156]

@@charliem.1368 fuck youre so right

[@Kagomai15]

I'm so torn between this and Sigyn, but at least the first half of Sigyn has Purpose before the Heartbreak kicks in I guess? :'D

[@pheo4156]

@@Kagomai15 that song has hope in it, a possibilty of things getting better. This song is the mourning of a world after all hope has been killed. Sigyn is sad, but for me atleast this beats ir

[@russelllahna2268]

Wait until I tell you that Marius (the voice of King Arthur) is also the one playing violin in this track

[@amassivespacedwarf2221]

The mechanisms really had a knack for bittersweet endings Like I'm here for it but I'm also crying a little

[@SingingSealRiana]

there is scarecly little sweet in this bittersweet

[@TheRealEvilkitten3]

@@SingingSealRiana yeah, like what's the sweet? that arthur probably got a couple more days before bleeding and or starving to death, knowing that his kid had lived and ended up murdering everybody?

[@TylerTheDestroyer97]

@@TheRealEvilkitten3 its heavily based on the actual bittersweet ending of traditional Arthurian legend; he's shot out into space in a stasis pod (the equivalent to him being sent off to the isle of Avalon to heal his wounds from Mordred), with the implication that maybe the once and future king could save another world after learning from his mistakes/shit luck here. His world is gone, but that doesn't mean every other one has to be. So, uh, basically just a very small grain of sugar after the most unbelievably bleak ending you can imagine.

[@TheRealEvilkitten3]

@@TylerTheDestroyer97 no i know but like in this version it's pretty unlikely that arthur will survive. but according to some of the legends, arthur's supposed to come back and be king again, right? so that one is bittersweet bc on the one hand everything is fucked but also arthur will show up in the distant future to un-fuck stuff. here... i don't think there's gonna be much left to un-fuck even if he does somehow manage to survive don't get me wrong, i love hnoc and i'm very fond of endings that are just "yeah no it's a tragedy no one's having a good time" but idk if this qualifies as bittersweet when the only real "sweet" is that arthur isn't dead yet. which can also tie into some versions of the arthurian stories where arthur actually is just dead, but doesn't really come off as sweet. i'm not saying i dislike the ending or anything, just that that grain of sugar might be a grain of sand that you're feeling a bit too hopeful about lol

[@rasputina4484]

according to youtube's automatic captions, Hogman rise in the rust that stained his whole life through.

[@Jay-nb5bx]

The reason this ending is the saddest is because there's so many ways this could've turned out okay If everyone listened to Brian Or if that Saxon just told everyone about the Sorcpion Or if there weren't Sorcpione on a space station in the first place

[@deepikagarg3136]

thanks now i'm gonna spend the next two hours staring blankly at the screen to try and recover. (see: recovery is not possible.)

[@sambee5043]

Everytime i listen to a new mechs song i have a new favorite song, even so this one is head and sholders above

[@FH-rp6zs]

Ashes/Mordred singing with such beautifully done anguish

[@Saga_Anserum]

I don't usually cry easily but this... this did it, man. the wonderful music, the lost hopes, the ambient sounds. All of it stacked up. This is going into my evidence box for "Jonny is an Avatar of the Desolation" theory

[@jitteryhands16]

OKAY I would love to hear that theory

[@jitteryhands16]

(though I’ve only finished season 1)

[@RouxAroo666]

This is by far the best album for me, that is not to say the others are bad, they are fantastic, but this one is the best for me, and not just because it combines my two favorite things in existence, Westerns and the Arthurian mythos.

[@emgama6079]

This is exactly how I feel about The Bifrost Incident combining Lovecraft and Norse mythology

[@RouxAroo666]

@@emgama6079 Valid. There's some great songs in it too and Norse myth is really cool. I'm personally less interested in Lovecraft but that's just my interests.

[@emgama6079]

@@RouxAroo666 That's very understandable, his writing style is kind of obnoxious and the greater Cthulu mythos outside of Lovecraft's own works can be very hit or miss

[@emgama6079]

@@RouxAroo666 And also Lovecraft was a racist creep for most of his life so I'm not gonna go out of my way to defend him lol

[@RouxAroo666]

@@emgama6079 Oh definitely dude was a shithead with some good world building ideas.

[@maicey_t.]

I have listened to this album probably fifteen times in the last two days. It's so. GOOD. like I know all the Mechs stuff is good, but this album is transcendent.

[@RouxAroo666]

Fucking right? I've listened to it over 20 times over the last year or so and I still am moved to tears.

[@maicey_t.]

@@RouxAroo666 Oh dude, every time it hits Peacemaker I have to remind myself to calm down and breathe. The lead up and the tension and the culmination of everything with Once and Future King is beyond words. It's such a good album. I wish I could force everyone to listen to it at least once.

[@RouxAroo666]

@@maicey_t. Dudett, not dude for me. It is fantastic, I've forced at least a few friends to listen to it, honestly I think it might be one of the top 10 retellings of the myths of the Once and Future King, as apocryphal as that may sound to over lovers of Galfridian and Arthurian lore.

[@maicey_t.]

@@RouxAroo666 I'm sorry! Hope I didn't offend. I tend to use "dude" as a gender neutral term, and I forget not everyone does. I, too, am a dudette. :P And same, I love what they've done with the Arthurian legend. I favor this retelling over any other, even though they've changed a lot of stuff. They're good changes and make the story better (and I know that's blasphemous to lovers of the lore but I don't care dangit).

[@RouxAroo666]

@@maicey_t. Ah nice to hear. It's totally fine, and thank you for apologizing. :) Where I'm from it's not neutral, and I'm a trans woman so it kinda stings hearing it, but no hate to most people who use it on me, I just like to not have it be used. I'm totally coping the Mordred being trans thing for my D&D setting where Arthur was a person who existed and so did his legend. It was just too good and fit too well!

[@feytrickster4915]

Im not a huge fan of HNOC, but this song is AMAZING

[@feytrickster4915]

Update: this is now my favourite album

[@doredam8919]

@@feytrickster4915 Character development

[@jafuncle]

@@feytrickster4915 That's how it goes. Better every listen

[@arachno-communist2657]

@@feytrickster4915 the pipeline is real

[@simiccombinefanatic331]

This song feels like an apocalypse. Especially 3:18 onward

[@romanvasquez728]

hey im just now finishing this album for the first time... and what the fuck

[@pussinboots9983]

I don't know what are these people talking about, until I decided to play the whole album and ended up here again.

[@timelyshadows8919]

Every album i end up in tears.... and yet I continue to listen

[@markcangila1613]

I feel bad for arthur - he low key made the most moral decisions of anyone there

[@markcangila1613]

Like, his 2 mistakes were: 1. Being a bit too mean to the saxons (but he also thought theyd killed his son so...) 2. Not recognizing his son (understandable when it's been years and your son has transitioned) Mordred's anger caused him to condemn the station to death, Brian was too damn vague, and Gwaine was Gwaine

[@maxandch33se90]

Galahad also made the right decisions, he might have been a religious maniac but he did give the people of the station a chance at survival and sacrificed his life for it.

[@fruitygarlic3601]

@@markcangila1613 His third and most important mistake was just never asking questions. The Captain wakes up and tries to tell you something when you take his GRAIL? Shoot him and ask questions later. There's a new Saxon in town, who may have known your daughter because they were once the same age in the same location, and someone told you that you'll soon meet a son? Put him in charge of your town without asking about his past first. Arthur's other mistakes could have been avoided if he just put his braincells to work before making decisions, which he saw as a weakness in Mordred, who (again) he knew well enough to give him Camelot for a while, despite not asking anything about his past that would have revealed his parentage.

[@markcangila1613]

@@fruitygarlic3601 That's true

[@SingingSealRiana]

@@fruitygarlic3601 just as arthur did not ask, morded never spoke up either. he tried to mend the rift between two cultures dear to him, but never braught up his strongest argument for that position nor the fact that would gain him the most leverage.

[@cosmic-fantasizer4567]

Thank you for your hard work!

[@TheVoidSings]

you're welcome!

[@SauceyRedHN]

So I just finished listening to this album a couple hours ago, but before I give my thoughts, here’s how I found this. So I got to work and opened the Apple Music app (I usually don’t use music services like Spotify and Apple Music but the 3-month trial offer was pretty nice). I look on the homepage for something (hopefully new) to listen to. Then I look in the “Similar to Shayfer James” (another artist I discovered under a month ago) list. There I see either the album or a song from it. Either way, I ended up listening to the album. At first I thought it was going to be a regular album with the songs telling a vague-ish story that is mostly up to interpretation. That was until I heard the first song and realized it was a narration. I then ended up listening to the whole thing, and I admit it did distract me from work since I had to kinda pay attention to it and ended up reading the lyrics to make sure I got everything haha. I had never heard of The Mechanisms before, this is the first thing I’ve listened from them, and I did not expect so much death! This album is so sad and it made me sad every time a character I got attached to died, and it just KEPT ON GOING! I also did NOT expect the world-building. Star faring civilization? Space station? GRAIL being a physical thing? I mean, I honestly still don’t fully understand it all, so I’ll have to listen to it again, but I really love the lore! I also didn’t really grasp the clear inspirations of it. I mean I got the Arthur and holy grail stuff, but I don’t really know the stories, so I have no real context or previous knowledge for this to build upon, but I still loved it. From what I’ve learned from the comments, this is a common occurrence, but usually ends on a hopeful note or something like that. I also just want to say that as I listened to the album, I was imagining it like an animated show or movie (because that’s what I mainly consume), and I just feel like it would be an incredibly unique show/comic. And with Arthur still being alive, there are so many possibilities. Honestly my imagination went wild with this. Definitely gonna be checking out their other stuff, but I’m still at work and if their other stuff is as clear and non-vague with their lyrics as this, it’s best if I wait until I can give them my full attention lmao.

[@SauceyRedHN]

I’m reading the fandom page and it’s definitely helping me fill in the gaps in my understanding of the story.

[@seamusrichardson6011]

I think the true timeline is the Bifrost incident, this, Once upon a time in space, with Ulysses dies at dawn unknown.

[@jester6408]

That doesn't work because at the end of The Bifrost Incident the universe is ending if I've interpreted it right

[@seamusrichardson6011]

@@jester6408 ah, I interpreted it more as a system scale apocalypse, where the ydgrassil system, and its stellar neighbors as well, got consumed by the madness.

[@jester6408]

@@seamusrichardson6011 yeah that makes a lot more sense since Lyfrassir survives and also DTTM is set after everything so if the universe ended that doesn't work lol

[@Lilibard]

@@jester6408 It's possible though that's why the space ship had no contact with any colony or life form that was supposed to help them or relieve them of duty. There's literally nothing else left

[@RouxAroo666]

I disagree if only because I can never see Arthur becoming King Cole, and that's what most people I've met who follow this timeline believe. I'm fine with saying Cole is the descendant of Arthur, but I just can't see Arthur becoming that monster, even after everything that happened in this story. I do agree that the Bifrost Incident and Yog-Sothoth was what cut off Fort Galfridian from the their home system though.

[@LyncanShepard]

The Snow it Melts the Soonest

[@f_mva]

brb gonna go cry

[@williamhenning4700]

Beautiful.

[@zoe932]

The real question is what happened to Brian?

[@TheVoidSings]

Was left in the sun for almost a century! Jonny was drunk and forgot about him, but they saved him eventually (it's in the fiction, interview transcript)

[@matteocasali202]

I just love the implication that Jonny managed to be too wasted for almost a century straight to remember THEIR SHIP'S PILOT WAS STRANDED IN A STAR

[@maicey_t.]

@@TheVoidSings how would I find this fiction transcript?? I'm still pretty new to the mechs but I want to know all the lore

[@TheVoidSings]

all the stories are on the mechs website! themechanisms.com/fiction/ the one I'm referencing here is this one: themechanisms.com/fiction/interview-transcript-34087012-periphery-police-suspect-266968-jonny-dville/

[@zelculothesquid8201]

I half expected that they’d have to wait until the sun exploded. Is the aurora as “immortal” as the mechanisms themselves?

[@erinkarp]

Oh cool, I never knew it was based on a folk song!

[@kristincook7808]

Ya know Gawain is pretty much the only bad guy

[@SingingSealRiana]

. . . he thought the saxons killed his kin morgause and his cruelty against them was his ironic attempt to avange her after he kind of failed to protect her . . . it is an attempt of redemption with some cruel twists of fate. Not saying it excuses all, but compared with what others pull of in that world hi is not more villainess than most

[@starkidrat]

Welp That hurt

[@vvv9224]

Holy fuck.

[@giovannipagliosa8490]

i havent listened this many times, but im still not sure who's the woman whom he'd been taught to despise, like, its about his saxon mother? In my mind it would make sense if we knew his age when they "adopted" him

[@egregiousinsomniac2183]

Yep! It's Morgan, his adoptive mother. In the fiction The Wake, she was cited as Mordred's staunchest defender while he was growing up, quite literally fighting tooth and nail to keep him even as he was ostracized by the rest of Saxon society. As for how old Mordred was when he was taken in, we don't know. But young enough at least that the earliest thing he can truly remember is when he saw Morgan's face for the first time.

[@RouxAroo666]

Anyone have an idea who the woman here is? "Loved only by a woman whom he’d been taught to despise"

[@TheVoidSings]

pretty sure it references his adopted mother, morgan. she was a saxion/"ghoul", which are hated by camelot

[@RouxAroo666]

@@TheVoidSings Oh, so he there is Mordred, I thought it was Arthur and was very confused.

[@Zo14roses]

The instrumental bit at 1:08 reminds me so much of another song but I can't figure it out for the life of me. Does anyone know what song it might be?

[@TheVoidSings]

The song based on The Snow It Melts The Soonest, if that's what you're thinking of? otherwise I wouldn't know

[@Zo14roses]

@@TheVoidSings No, but thank you!

[@LeighsLittleLife]

It reminds me of certain parts in Unto Ashes ‘This Duration of Emptiness’

[@nyastyaraspuwutina3112]

same here- the guitar riff seems really reminiscent of something else but I can't figure out what

[@a-bird-lover]

ooh yeah that's definitely some classic rock guitar riff, god I can't think of it what is it

[@rainbowdiamond6039]

okay so im confused since there is so many different Arthurian legends, is Mordred a girl? does Mordred love authur or gwen?

[@TheVoidSings]

Mordred is a trans man here. Arthur is his dad. Gwen is one of Arthurs partners, the other being Lancelot. (and Mordred's biological mother was Ygraine and his adopted mother was Morgan, who's a Saxon here)

[@overlorde7526]

It also bears noting that the mythos is exactly that, a mythos. There's common threads (Arthur and his sword, Camelot, the Knights and the Table,) but there will very extreme differences between stories, and especially with this one where they took the lego pieces and fit them together in a completely different context

[@SingingSealRiana]

mordred was arthurs daughter morgause in this (who in mythology usualy is a aunt of arthur) who is trans so he came to camelot under his chosen male name mordred (who in myth usuay is either the neffew or son of arthur) they changed around a lot of things in this

[@TonyToed]

3:20 sounds kinda like old king cole huh

[@Dr_Mortis_SCP]

There is actually a theory that Arthur becomes Cole, so there’s that

[@jodrako4341]

I'm the only one but the final instrumental part reminds a bit of space odyssey?

[@sling4425]

Oh.... so no Gringolet?

[@chrisbarreto9691]

is. is author brian???? i’m losing my mind rn i.

[@chrisbarreto9691]

arthur**** it’s 2 am! real illiterate hours

[@whitepearlreaper]

@@chrisbarreto9691 Nah, that's Merlin. The theory is that Arthur is Old King Cole!

[@chrisbarreto9691]

oh shit i hadn’t even thought about that one! i mean i was thinking about how he was thrown to the aether like how brian was found?? yknow??

[@screamingmadvoid]

I’ve heard both theories and both seem valid

[@whitepearlreaper]

@@chrisbarreto9691 Oooo, interesting.