ENVISION demo and lyrics

Download the demo here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mzjvnq1jtnd

1. Homo Sacer: Damn you fence sitting self. Questions and guilt abound of which path to take. And if pointed by Providence, release these binds; and if not by fate, conquer the fear that guides. Where do we turn? An investment of faith with no reward. Faith borrowed from deceit and lost. Onward, holy man, in conquest across desert and sea. Raise the flag of burden over these cities. The path forever trampled by an unsteady gait. Besieged by inconsequence, do I enter these walls? “Go into yourself and test the deeps in which your life takes rise;”* We stumble forward with derision at our back.

The title of this song is derived from Georgio Agamben's study on a Roman law which states:

The sacred man is the one whom the people have judged on account of a crime. It is nor permitted to sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him will not be condemned for homicide; in the first tribunitian of law, in fact, it is noted that "if someone kills the one who is sacred according to the plebiscite, it will not be considered homicide." This is why it is customary for a bad or impure man to be called sacred.

This sacricity is the absence of death in which one exists as a waking-specter that haunts the domain of his community as resident and exile (Bellingham, specifically), to live without recourse or effect. Whether this status is imaginary or not, the city has displayed enormous resistance against anything which might compromise its proudly subdued or complacent tradition. I believe we recognize we will exist without recognition or legitimacy-- but with this acknowledgment is the struggle to obtain that which inspires us. Conversely, this struggle is filled with doubt. Are we pushing ahead with full-knowledge of failure? Can we win?

2. Revision: The command never descended from high nor a Puritan's hand scrubbed of vice. Refute regression to a concept of sin weighed against the myth of the innocence. Straight edge, clarity of desire marked by action. Bereft of shame? We know no rules to bind us. We are not the damned but masters of our lives. Reject the intoxication, the referral of desire to schizophrenic enslavement where freedom should lie.

While Envision is not a straight edge band, it is a concept that is very important to a few of us. This song is a response to the branding of straight edge as an act or movement of "purity" or "cleanliness." To adopt this definition in place of an act of liberation, one must accept the tacit burden of the religious subtext that begs we accept an impossible state of existence in the hopes of some kind of unresolved salvation-- and places uncritical and restrictive demands on morality and sexuality which strangles the progress of healthy sexual identities. This enforces or permits attitudes of sexism and homophobia when we should be encouraging the space to live and love without fear of castigation. This is not exclusive to straight edge, obviously, but it seems so ridiculous in the context of punk and hardcore. There is no third X. Straight edge is not a movement. It is totally awesome, nonetheless.

3. State of Exception: I act this way because I haven't anything to say and I can't say I love you without witnessing scorn in your eyes. What is this distance? This fragile skin, this hollow heart? This coward's veil pulled taut to mask a sinking gaze. Stammer idle words of hope. I recite the lines so well. We will always be strangers: The hand that grips the other but won't let go; A body fit for nothing but a hole; Abandon the loves of youth for the ghost of myself. “But to those who... remain behind, it is perhaps always like this.”*

In some things, there cannot be success. So what do you do?


*These lyrics were written while reading a lot of Rainer Maria Rilke which resulted in a few of his lines being borrowed.