Music Poetry

The title of this particular piece of musical poetry is "Anthem Of The Angels", by Breaking Benjamin, from the album Dear Agony. The song's central theme is about a recent loss of someone close to the singer. The singer takes the place of someone who has recently experienced a loss, which helps connect to the listeners, and the singer addresses the person who is now dead. The song accurately portrays the magnitude of despair a person feels when they lose someone close to them, such as a friend or a family member.

The song immediately uses an implied metaphor of sorts to state the occasion for the song with the lines:

White walls surround us
No light will touch your face again
Rain taps the window
As we sleep among the dead

Out of context, the last line seems to imply that either both the speaker and the person serving as the audience are both alive and simply sleeping with dead bodies, but taking the second line with the last line suggests only the audience is dead - the speaker is addressing a dead body; both feel dead, but the audience is physically dead while the speaker feels like he or she is dead from the sheer weight of the loss of the audience. The next section of the song implies the speaker's grief is so intense that they have not been able to leave the dead one's side:

Days go on forever
But I have not left your side
We can chase the dark together
If you go, then so will I

These lines, especially the last two, imply that the speaker is contemplating the possibility of his own death to be with the audience, which shows the speaker is not in thinking straight due to grief over the loss and desperation for something to do to remedy the situation. The repeated chorus section illustrates the helplesssness of the speaker in this regard:

There is nothing left of you
I can see it in your eyes
Sing the anthem of the angels
And say your last goodbye
I keep holding on to you
But I can't bring you back to life
Sing the anthem of the angels
Then say the last goodbye

This section indicates the speaker's final understanding and reluctant acceptance of the reality of the situation; the speaker acknowledges that there is nothing he or she can do for the audience, and encourages the person who died to "say their last goodbye" and leave forever. The speaker never entirely accepts this reality, but understands there is nothing he or she can do, which applies to most people in the midst of grieving the loss of a friend or family member.