thinkingjellyfish

[thinkingjellyfish]

A Little Train Of Thought.

I've been thinking I need to be thinking more. I've called myself thinking jellyfish so I might as well say. 

I have random distinct memories from when I was like in summer camp when I was in elementary school. I remember when I was playing a game of some kind. A young child who was way smaller than me was playing the game but had some trouble with it because he was so small. 

A coach said “don't worry you aren't going to be small forever your going to eventually tower over Them”

I thought to myself no, you're going to grow but all of us are going to grow at the same rate so we'll Always be taller. I wasn’t the smartest child and had no idea about the statistical idea of logistic growth.

So that was dumb. Logistic growth basically means that growth slows down as time goes on or in a graph when the line curves forward. I’ll put my sources in a reply under this post but  As opposed to linear growth where growth is constant or the line is straight. I thought human growth was linear when it was truly logistic. 

Shame on my elementary schooler self; I confused types of statistical growth. I made a common mistake actually. You see, I'm not the only one who makes these kinds of mistakes. A Lot of things that grow grow in a logistic fashion. Basically anything with limited space, fuel, or energy, etc. will grow in a logistic pattern. 

One example is animal populations they mostly grow in this fashion. Say you see that sea turtles are F--king like crazy then that’s a problem right? My jellyfish self is in danger of being devoured by dome shaped death. No turtle populations can only grow at a certain rate that rate is the amount of food they have. But it’s not exactly logistic growth, it's logistic growth than fall drop off followed by logistic growth of prey populations than repeat. But these ideas are not just dumb fun they can be dangerous if not understood

One famous crazy idea is that the population will grow exponentially. Exponential growth is the opposite of logistic growth. In exponential growth the line goes up in a curve. So this is dumb for several reasons, not the least of which is that it is just statistically wrong, the population has been going down. 

To understand why this idea is dangerous we have to talk about Robert Malthus, a man who hated the poor and wanted to kill them. Okay so he never said anything like that but I think that is what he believed. What he actually said was that the growth of human populations is exponential but the growth of foods is not so we must cull the populations of the poor to fix this. This is dumb because it is wrong and also evil. Why should the poor be the ones who die, you asshole, why not you and the aristocracy. But we don’t have to worry about his idea because it was proven wrong right? Right? Oh wait, people still believe this don’t they?

Stop, how did we get here? I was talking about how I thought I was going to grow forever and I’m still talking for some reason, I don’t know why. I like thinking a lot and thought this up so we are here. It’s been fun, bye.

[thinkingjellyfish]

Here’s some fairy pokemon, my favorite type. For this painting I used some inspiration from fairy lore. Sylveon shows their friends some ancient lake of power. enjoy.

Sylveon shows their friends some ancient power as they plan their next prank. Fairies love playing pranks on unsuspecting humans. But this time they look in shock because of the ancientness of this power. The power comes from natural water and water is unbelievably ancient.

[thinkingjellyfish]

Boom! a gouache painting of my cat, enjoy.

[thinkingjellyfish]

Some traditional art from a class I did awhile back from actual specimens. done with oil paint.

[thinkingjellyfish]

Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

[thinkingjellyfish]

why tesseract primed me to hate AI (The final thing about my favorite choruses)

AI steals art. “But copyright is bad.” Yes, in the US copyright is bad because it protects corporations and is difficult for anyone else to use. Thanks Mickey Mouse. But that’s immaterial for the AI debate. 

Copyright makes it difficult to create new art, this is true, it was meant to protect artists but was used by corporations like the mouse one to make heaps of cash. But despite that, stealing is still wrong.

Let’s say you worked hard on a 20 page essay in college and your classmate brought it to your professor, passing it off as their own, you would be pissed right? That would be wrong. That’s plagiarism even in a situation where copyright is immaterial and money is uninvolved. 

Copyright is not bad, it just protects the wrong people. If you hate copyright but don’t want to help the artists. Then you are a bad person. Artists don’t make enough money and are exploited by the creatively deficient at every turn. They are paid nothing while their owners reap the cash they deserve. I don’t want to hear about actors or singers because like the majority have other jobs they make so little from their creativity.

To me art is communication even if art was made to be nonsensical (goo-goo g'joob (beatles reference)) wait! that song is the perfect example. I Am The Walrus uses random lyrical images to be nonsensical but still reveals a lot about the time and place of the people writing it. (AI could never produce I Am The Walrus). Listen to the song you will get what I’m talking about. 

This all came to me as I was analyzing my favorite choruses because each one of them, no matter how poppy and mainstream it is, is unmistakably creative. The subtleties and the obvious are all human. But AI is just taking from them without communicating anything. 

Listen, I tried both, AI music and art, I hate them both. Music is all short and the same even from different genres. There's no communication and nothing to love except if you like to hear the same thing over and over again. 

AI art is the same, it's bad, it’s boring but it looks oh so proficient. All it can tell you is about what images are popular. Mainly images of similar looking creepy bug eyed skinny white women. 

Now listen I love similar looking creepy bug eyed skinny white women but if that's all you create it’s so boring and a bit damaging. It’s been said how AI will be permanently behind the times and how it will produce societal stereotypes. But that to my id is behind the plagiarism and this.

Of Mind - Nocturne my favorite chorus broke through the wall of my cynicism because it was new and unique to me. It disproved my idea that art is meaningless by being so meaningful without meaning anything. (See the end of my Of Mind - Nocturne post).

If I just consumed AI I would never have become less cynical because I would never consume anything new. “But AI theoretically could produce it.” I know it could but it won't because you AI assholes will never want to create anything new. 

I’ve seen your posts and they are as uncreative as the AI itself. You say the same things post the same things over and over and I hate it. I hate you.

If you want to see me do analisis where I’m significantly more happy see my series of posts about my favorite choruses maybe you will find some new human made music that you will love.

[thinkingjellyfish]

My favorite chorus - Of Mind - Nocturne / Tesseract, explained. 

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series.

Before I serenade you with prog I’ll add some background. You see, I love this chorus mostly for biased reasons. As a teen I was cynical. I thought people are bad and self interested, stereotypical stuff. 

But one my belief that spiraled from that was the idea of music and art being meaningless. I would hear people say that an album or song has changed them and think it’s stupid it’s just beep boop sounds. How can that change someone? I didn’t even understand what it meant to change.

But then I started listening to metal music. Not because I was angry or anything, quite the opposite I felt nothing at all I just thought it was pleasant and fit my taste. I listened to older bands like korn and other nu metal stuff because I liked the sound but it never wowed me. But a few years after that youtube recommended this song to me.

I couldn’t name any djent prog or math metal bands or songs. So this poppy style of metal worked well with me. But other than the metalica I listened to, the music was pretty empty. And metallica is old, so I had no idea what music and art could be in the modern day after years of progression. Until I found the song king by tesseract I thought it was boring. So I didn’t look back until, tesseract jumpscare! It was in a random youtube video I was watching the song nocturne. It blew me away.

The song starts with a massive but simple riff. Easy to understand, easy to interpret. But then it throws you into a soft hell of rhythm and syncopation. If you don’t know the song beforehand you won't be able to predict this melody. So listen on youtube and come back this post will wait.

As you could hear the pre-chorus is entirely muted notes but on random off beats they play voiced notes like small little jumpscares not enough to notice but enough to get you confused. In addition to that, the rhythm itself is also difficult to predict. It throws you way off.

To add to this the vocals are strange, airy and weak. He sings breathily and really holds those notes for a long time like he’s struggling to sing. At the same time he harmonizes with himself. He sings high as opposed to the deep notes of the instruments. It leaves a ton of room in the mix to be unfilled. This effect is strengthened by the pre chorus in which the notes go even deeper but this goes along with the strengthening of the singer ratcheting up the intensity. All leading to the chorus.

Boom! “You’re the plague within my dream” the rhythm is the same but all the notes are voiced getting rid of the syncopation making it suck you in more all while increasing the power. But what really gets me is those vocals. He sings with so much power in comparison to what came before I was honestly shocked. 

It completely threw me off the entire song, not just the chorus though that is the best part. It was one of the first songs to ever make me think “oh wow that’s unique.” I’d listened to other metal tracks but they all seemed like stereotypical metal like what I expected it to be. This was something new. And is still pretty unique to me.

But this is one of those times where I recognised a song had changed me. It broke through my cynicism a bit because. They seem to be trying hard and are playing difficult music. But why? They could just be a pop metal act and get even more money but they didn’t and it worked. 

This destroyed my cynical ideas, but mainly the one about art being meaningless. This song is unique and interesting and I loved it because of that. It has a deeper mysterious meaning that I cannot understand and maybe tesseract doesn’t understand. This changed the way I viewed art. 

Someone else with a mind created something to communicate with me and many others. They communicated many things but one thing they did for me was passion while being lost. The rhythms are confusing but the chorus is clear; this really spoke to me.

And that’s why I hate AI music and art. It’s a disgusting mockery of this. That’s right this entire series is an anti AI post. 

Final writing coming up soon.

[thinkingjellyfish]

I guess the reason I never put down my pencil was because all my teachers loved teaching and were taught by people who knew what they were doing. But it’s so strange to have a teacher simply say “you suck at drawing” one of the hardest parts of drawing.

I’ve been sketching and painting again for something to do lately between screen breaks.

And I just now realized that my art teacher was wrong. I didn’t suck at drawing anatomy. It just so happened I was using my anatomy as a reference, so of course all the joints looked wrong and like they were in the wrong place. I was accidentally documenting my hypermobility and getting scolded for it 🫠

[thinkingjellyfish]

That’s a very weird way to teach. She shouldn’t have said “you suck at drawing anatomy.” she should have said something like “you need to study anatomy more.” and then like, reference some books or websites to help you study. Why the hell would anyone tell someone that they suck at something they are supposed to be teaching. Anatomy is learned not known. weird.

if my teacher taught me like that I would put my pencil down.

I’ve been sketching and painting again for something to do lately between screen breaks.

And I just now realized that my art teacher was wrong. I didn’t suck at drawing anatomy. It just so happened I was using my anatomy as a reference, so of course all the joints looked wrong and like they were in the wrong place. I was accidentally documenting my hypermobility and getting scolded for it 🫠

[thinkingjellyfish]

2nd favorite chorus - Bleak / Opeth, explained.

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series.

This is my favorite song on the list but not my favorite chorus. It has a deep dark feeling to it which it builds on and subverts beautifully. It has a section in the middle which is dark and sexy. And of course since it’s on this list it has an amazing chorus. 

This song sets a tone, dare I say a bleak tone. It plays you a beautiful diminished sus chord that is overwhelming. And slams it several times before moving into the beautiful and horrific riff. He then begins to growl which people will have various opinions on if you think it’s awesome or too much. Personally I love it. This intro and verse have so much power to them and the growling makes it horrificly awesome.

The production is amazing. The guitars don’t whine, they howl. The drugs don’t get hit, they stomp. The singer whales like he is in great pain. It feels like a death metal record definitely but it also fits the more progressive stuff in as well. All while being relatively unprocessed. It honestly baffles me how they did that. 

For the intro and verse of this song the music theory is so complex I can’t get into detail without going over the character limit so I’ll skip it. But what I will say about it is that it moves through dissonant chords extremely fast and harshly and in an interesting melody that I love. If this series of posts was about songs in and of themselves I would make this a multi post long essay about this entire song. But I’ll focus on the chorus.

After all that great musicianship my thought is how can it get any better? And apparently the lead singer of Porcupine Tree has an answer because Steven Wilson the lead singer of Porcupine Tree starts singing beautifully in a call and response pattern with Mikael (opeth’s lead singer). Before moving to sing seemingly in unison (though I could be wrong about that). and oh the riff that plays under it.

The chorus riff is amazing, The chorus is introduced by a B minor add B5 chord. This is an unsettling but powerful chord. This chord is made up of a minor chord (a sad chord) plus the 5th major scale degree which conflicts harshly with the minor 5th scale degree; these two notes are a half step apart and notes that are a half step apart clash horribly. The effect of this is a sad sounding chord with a clashing feeling to it. This is what starts the chorus.

The chord is strummed up twice then down once before a muted chord is played twice. The two upward strummed chords have a lighter sound and the strummed down chord has a heavier sound and the following two muted chords give the chorus some rhythm. The muted chords are so it’s not just powerful chords played over and over again; it gives it pull. 

From there the strumming is interesting; it goes up up down again but followed by an up down up. This is followed by two b major chords. The two major chords are to connect it to the next measure which also ends with those two same chords. 

The chord of the second section of the chorus is a B major 7th chord. This chord wants to resolve to the tonic. It is followed by a G and its 6th scale degree and another major 7th chord, though this one is suspended it also wants to resolve to the tonic. And after all that it does resolve to the tonic

So each section doesn’t leave you in suspense for two long (they resolve to the tonic quickly). It brings you back to the tonic both times giving it a harsh but not overwhelming feeling unlike the verse and intro. 

Then the song continues and drops a soft melody “help me cure you” he sings as the music slithers. Before returning to a metal style riff into another more pretty riff back into the chorus once again. And after that he begins to growl again and the song ends.

Listen to it all the way through. I promise you it’s worth it. I know it’s long but if you got this far listen to the song I promise you it will make your day. 

[thinkingjellyfish]

3rd favorite chorus - Bodies / Sex Pistols, explained.

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series.

Oh look, it's my problematic fave. This song was off of the controversial (to say the least) album “Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols” and in my opinion is the best song the sex pistols have ever played. But that has nothing to do with my opinion on the morality of the song. 

I am pro-choice and this song I believe is an anti-abortion song. The lead singer Sid Vicious says otherwise though "That song was hated and loathed. It's not anti-abortion, it's not pro-abortion. It's: 'Think about it. Don't be callous about a human being, but don't be limited about a thing as 'morals' either. Because it's immoral to bring a kid in this world and not give a toss about it.'"

I agree with what he says about not bringing a kid into the world when you do not care about it but I disagree that this song is neutral on abortion. It was placed at number 8 on the National Review’s best conservative rock song list. So conservatives certainly agree with it. But on the other hand Sex Pistols is not a conservative band in any way.

In my mind I put this song in a similar camp as the starship troopers movie. What I mean by that is the song accidentally appeals to conservatives in a way the writer never wanted.

But enough about morality and ethics let’s get into the carnage. The song begins by pounding between B5 and F#5 power chords giving you no time to breath before the chorus in which it finally switches to a G major chord, then an A major chord for the chorus. 

Two major chords in a row is interesting but is it not uncommon. It’s a little weird for a punk band though, to play two major chords in a row. For those who don’t know, major chords are considered happy. Though the context of the song makes them anything but. Though after the two chords are played they return to a series of power chords. Then to end it off they play the G and A again but this time as power chords removing the third giving a harsh effect back to the chorus. 

The sudden major chords make it so the power chords are sort of interrupted by the happy sounds to signal a switch to the chorus. And despite the messaging I do like this chorus it’s just so utterly brutal. 

He sings “body I’m not an animal” over and over again. And in the second chorus he sings “mummy I’m not an animal” so to return to the beginning it’s a bit difficult to call this song neutral on abortion. Even if that was the intent. 

But if you do view it as neutral then it’s a powerful image to show how some parents neglect their children. Or it could be about Pauline, a previously mentioned character talking about how despite the fact that she is mentally ill and a woman she’s not just a body. Or it could be Sid Vicious himself saying he’s not a body to society. 

These interpretations make it hard to write off this song as conservative, it could be just rich with meaning but the abortion imagery makes it difficult. Why did you use abortion imagery damn it.

[thinkingjellyfish]

4th favorite chorus - As The World Caves In / Matt Maltese, explained.

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series. 

As the world caves in is a massive hit song so of course I heard it and I was absolutely floored by it. Mainly that chorus of course. It’s just so powerful the instrumentation, the lyrics, the singing.

I like to think that choruses exist in the context of the whole song so what makes this my 4th favorite is the fact that it fits in and separates itself from the rest of the song. The chorus is powerful as opposed to the low key intro.

The lyrics are also great. The use of nuclear apocalypse imagery is utterly soul crushing and how that imagery goes against the romantic imagery creates a powerful tension. The nuclear imagery gives it a feeling of horror of days past like the nuclear scare of the 1950’s. While the romantic imagery being described alongside it gives it an emotional complexity that I love.

In the chorus itself the lines “Oh, girl, it's you that I lie with” and “As the atom bomb locks in.” are put next to each other to really push this comparison. And this is reinforced by them watching “TV” “as the world caves in” 

Now that I think about it this chorus is only 4 lines long but I struggle to call it short because of the amount the lines are held and how powerful they are but how are these lines so powerful?

In order to properly convey my love of this song I have to get technical. I’m actually going to talk about music theory on this one because what makes this so beautiful is the composition. so get ready because I’m working with blinders on as I’m not trained to recognize notes by ear so I have to use sheet music and many transcriptions of this song contradict each other. But here goes nothing.

The chord that the chorus begins on is an e flat major 7th chord. A powerful chord that, since the song is in the key of b flat major, badly wants to resolve to the tonic chord of b flat major. And if it doesn’t resolve to this note it makes it hard to listen to. 

And the chord does resolve to the tonic giving a satisfying feeling to the chorus. but it Makes sure before you get to the tonic again you hear this chord loud and clear. The chord is emphasized by the amount of power it’s played with the length that it’s played, the fact that the singer is also holding it and the fact that it’s built up to by the previous section.

But then as 7th chords do it goes back to the tonic though this part is less emphasized. The song wants you to have the resolution of the tonic so you don’t get overwhelmed by the sound of an unresolved 7th. Unlike others on my list this isn’t a song where you're supposed to be uncomfortable so he does resolve the chord rather quickly.

What I love about this other than my general love of powerful dissonant chords like this is the fact that holding this chord adds so much emotion that wouldn’t be there if he just, say, played the famous 4 chord progression. 

This 7th chord is what makes this song without that dissonance being held on it wouldn’t work. So it’s a bit sad I couldn’t find any modern pop songs other than this one that use this chord. This song seems to use it as a way to harken back to the days where it was commonly used. 

[thinkingjellyfish]

Favorite choruses part 3 The Diary of Jane / Breaking Benjamin and Romantic Homicide / d4vd

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series. 

6th favorite chorus The Diary of Jane / Breaking Benjamin

Do I need to say the lines? you already know them. This song was and still is a major hit and one of the most popular metal things and it deserves that status. It’s my favorite pop metal track. 

But let’s take a long look at it. The word “something’s” frames the first two lines and gives a sense of repetition and momentum. As a music teacher says “Repetition legitimizes.” and in the first instance of the chorus the singer goes through the first 4 lines fast before holding the last one leading us into a instrumental section and onward. This chorus has a pull to it and that last line throws you.

The chorus also works in separation from the previous line as the harsher vocals of the verses really enhance the later chorus which is sung more. 

But if that was all it wouldn’t be my 6th favorite it also does one of my favorite things it adds onto the subsequent choruses. “As I burn another page as I look the other way.” does the same maneuver as the beginning of the chorus. Repeating a few words to pull us through the chorus and make it so the new lines fit into the chorus.

Before continuing the previous line with “I still, try to find my place.” and than saying “so tell me how it should be” once again. But on the last chorus he doesn’t repeat that final line because the song is ending and that line is to force you into the next verse. Instead he sobs the word jane giving a sad sort of feeling in the end. 

This whole song is simultaneously angry and moody. Which is what you want as a metalish song. The repetition of various lines like “do you like that.” and “as I” make it seem like he’s repeatedly trying to break through to Jane emphasizing his words to no avail. The repetition also legitimises harshness making it seem less overwhelming. This song is poetry.

5th favorite chorus Romantic Homicide / d4vd

It’s a crime that this chorus is sung only once in the song. The whole song is a mere buildup to this chorus. You’re thinking “this is nice.” and then “in the back of my mind you died, and I didn’t even cry.” Those harsh words get your attention, this is recognised by the music which adds what seems to be an electric guitar, his words make the music more complex.

The verse makes him seem reluctant and like he’s unsure which adds to the confident and angry words that follow making it all the more impactful. 

The rhyme scheme is weird on this one; the first rhyme on the chorus is “cry” and “arrive” four lines into the chorus. But the strange thing is “died” and “cry” sort of rhyme making those two lines flow together and emphasizing cry. The next few lines have less structure because they don’t rhyme which should make it less cohesive but the repeating rhythm of the words make it work. And when he says “arrive” you know we’ve returned to structure and can move on. 

The next line after a lyricless break, we get into the chorus' tail. He repeats “in the back of my mind,” but instead of saying “you died.” he says “I killed you.” removing the ambiguity of the first line of the chorus and making clear how much he hates this person. 

But now since the song is ending the lines retract and shorten. They are given structure and movement by the repeating of the word “it” at the end of the two lines in the middle of the tail. Before ending the song with “but it’s true, I hate you.” ending the song with the line “I hate you” gives the final emotion of anger that is undercut by the airy and soft instrumentation reminding us that the strongest hatred comes from love.

Also check out the live version with the red flower on the album cover because that has an amazing addition to the chorus.

[thinkingjellyfish]

Favorite choruses part 2 Head Mounted Sideways / Vola and West Coast Smoker / Fall Out Boy

See the full list of my favorite choruses in the first post of this series

8th favorite chorus West Coast Smoker / Fall Out Boy

That’s right we have more Emo music. This time though it’s a deeper cut. Off the album Folie A Deux it’s the last song of that album and is currently the least played song off that album on spotify. But it’s my favorite fall out boy song and has a great chorus

It’s a short chorus a mere 5 short lines long. But this is a powerful one. This chorus pulls you through it using two strategies: call and response and a count to three. 

First the call and response. The call is “oh, hell yes” and the response is “I’m a nervous wreck" and “the drugs just make me reset.” This for me creates momentum that is carried through the next 3 lines.

“Knock once for the father, twice for the sun, three times for the holy ghost.” This counting up creates a through line through numbers. To go along with it the drum also hits once, then twice, then three times.

This is a song about needing drugs to function without being a “nervous wreck.” so one way to look at the biblical reference is through the lens of irony. Another interesting thing to look at is the line “suicidal cats, gotta kill themselves 9 times before they get it right” changes meaning when you realise he counts to 3, 3 times or in other words knocks 9 times so the knocks could them taking drugs to kill themselves. 

People say that Fall Out Boy’s lyrics are stupid or cringe but these lyrics are seriously dark and interesting. Give it an active listen if you have time.

7th favorite chorus Head Mounted Sideways / Vola

This chorus is beautiful. Beauty which is added too by how strange, processed, and hard to understand the verse it follows is. This is the rare song where I remember vividly the first time I heard it. I liked the riff but was weirded out by the first verse but my jaw dropped at the chorus I was amazed. 

One thing I believe is that all parts of sequential art exist in, well, sequence. Or in other words in the context of all other parts. So the strange first verse is justified by how it makes the following chorus better. And oh boy is that chorus good. 

As opposed to the verse, which is hard to understand, in the lower end, complex, and rhythmic. The chorus is simple, held, in the higher end, clear and confident. It keeps you locked in by building on itself, making each line longer than the last before repeating a line and ending the chorus.

The riffs are also opposed. The intro riff is a low djent riff that is rhythmic and chugs like crazy. The chorus riff is a higher pitch riff that has an almost electronic feel. Everything about that chorus is good.

The lyrical structure pulls a similar trick to West Coast Smoker.  Where the first line does a sort of call and response but less so. “Bring out your forces, bring out your crosses now.” the line “bring out” frames the first two lines and gives it a sense of momentum and repetition. 

The next three lines are longer. “There’s a lifeline breaking in this frost.” is a great line that I love. It’s strangely hopeful compared to everything else about his song.

That's what I love about this chorus and this song. Everything seems to chug along in the beginning and then you hear the chorus a lifeline in the frosty riff. It’s great songwriting and a great bridge between the music and lyrics. 

more analysis at a later time. see you!

[thinkingjellyfish]

My Top 10 Favorite Choruses And An Explanation For Each

It’s hard to explain the appeal of music without a great education in it but I’ll try anyway. There’s nothing I love more than a good chorus and I will tell the world about it. Nothing can stop me, not my mom, the difficulty of explaining music, or god. So here’s my favorite courses and explanations after that.

Of Mind - Nocturne / Tesseract 

Bleak / Opeth

Bodies / Sex Pistols 

As The World Caves In / Matt Maltese 

Romantic Homicide / d4vd

The Diary of Jane / Breaking Benjamin

Head Mounted Sideways / Vola

West Coast Smoker / Fall Out Boy

The Ghost of You / My Chemical Romance 

Psychopomp / Thank You Scientist 

10th favorite chorus Psychopomp / Thank You Scientist 

Starting with a weird one. Psychopomp is a song by the prog band Thank You Scientist. It's long and a bit of an adventure with strange choices all around. Strange doesn’t equal bad as I find the song a fascinating listen that pulls me in. 

But in order to explain the chorus we have to talk about the build up. The singing starts fairly low key compared to the harsh progy instrumentation of the intro. with the instruments the singing builds slowly. They have time. This song is a whopping 9 and a half minutes long. So they build into the first thing that sounds like a pre chorus but it’s not it goes into more build up, and then the chorus begins!

“You separate the physical from the unknown.” mysterious lyrics sung with power and length of delivery while the melodies of the instruments are pounding in a way not unlike Bleak by Opeth, my second favorite chorus but we will get to that. 

He continues the long powerful delivery before speeding up with the line “cause you are eachother if you see your mother tell her” to me this feels like he’s letting us breath by spreading up and weakening the delivery if the powerful delivery kept going it would be overwhelming and boring. The rhyme scheme also picks up “eachother, mother, her.” coming rapid fire. 

He continues the powerful delivery with “and you can’t afford to leave.” finally he finishes the chorus with “your paralyzed” the line that is the shortest of the chorus making it incredibly impactful. before sending us back to the beginning with the progy instrumentation.

The instrumentation is also interesting. In the beginning it was overwhelming but compared to the pounding of the chorus it almost seems like it’s allowing us to breathe. Despite it’s strange progyness.

In summary, please come back Thank You Scientist we miss you.

9th favorite chorus the The Ghost of You / My Chemical Romance 

The first of the more well known songs on the list. This is my favorite MCR chorus. It’s very emo obviously but it’s emotional in a way unlike other MCR songs. The instrumentation in the beginning gives off to me a hopeless feeling. Unlike MCR’s more angry style on other songs.

This hopeless feeling is not reinforced but built on by the chorus where he sounds like he’s howling for something. I don’t quite understand what the song is about but someone has definitely died and he’s howling about how they are never coming back.

And the line “at the end of the world or the last thing I see.” is such a powerful intro to the chorus.

As a kid when I first heard this song (my brother showed it to me he was and still is a fan) I thought it was different from the others it really stood out to me. Helena never caught my attention for whatever reason and nothing from Black Parade would get me till I listened to the album in full but this song and its video hit me hard. 

So a big part of why I love it so much is nostalgia plain and simple. But the emotion of that chorus is what caught my attention in the first place. And I think that says a lot. Even to a kid who had no idea about death I could understand that he is hurting and that is something to take note of.

I’ll post more analysis at a later time. see you!

[thinkingjellyfish]

Velociraptor, or as I call it, danger chicken. I went with weird colors because we don’t know what the velociraptor looks like. I wanted something kind of like what could exist in real life but still out there enough to look cool.

It’s weird to me how people for a long time fought the idea that velociraptor was small and had feathers. They would say “that’s not cool, that’s not scary” as if paleontology is based on personal opinion. And also feathers are plenty cool. Have you seen modern paleoart!? 

[thinkingjellyfish]

Velociraptor, or as I call it, danger chicken. I went with weird colors because we don’t know what the velociraptor looks like. I wanted something kind of like what could exist in real life but still out there enough to look cool.

It’s weird to me how people for a long time fought the idea that velociraptor was small and had feathers. They would say “that’s not cool, that’s not scary” as if paleontology is based on personal opinion. And also feathers are plenty cool. Have you seen modern paleoart!?