#MusicMonday ft. Pompeii by Bastille #Fahrenbruary

Hi and welcome to #MusicMonday!

First of all, credit where credit is due: Music Monday is hosted by Drew a.k.a. @SarcasticEnigma over on The Tattooed Book Geek. Each week he presents a song that he really loves and this week I’m joining in, but with a bit of a twist: I’m featuring a song in honour of #Fahrenbruary. When I had my little heart-to-heart with Ariana D. Den Bleyker (click here if you missed it), she named Pompeii as the title song for her pitch black novella Dark Water (click here for my review). When I told her that I was surprised by that answer because Pompeii seemed too upbeat for such a dark novella, this is what she told me:

You make an interesting point. I’m very much inebriated by music in general, but I’m particularly drawn to lyrics and meaningful interpretations. Pompeii is interesting in the fact that it is upbeat and that it doesn’t include the title in the lyrics. When you infer the history of Pompeii itself, one filled with a city that lived in excess before being trapped in time by a volcanic eruption, skeletons that were found staring into the sky, as if they ended their lives in introspection, you have to think of Dark Water. In Dark Water, you find these characters, all seemingly out for themselves, torn and tormented, creating webs of chaos. Yet, there seems to be these tiny moments where they muse on life. But, they’re stuck as though nothing’s changed, they move forward, dancing as their worlds fall apart. There’s no redemption—only rubble and sin. Even in death, with eyes closed, there is no redemption. Everyone is in stasis. Elizabeth muses in the end she would paint it: “We die for having lived, she thought, we live for fear of death.” This sums up the story of Pompeii and the song. And, there’s nothing better than an upbeat song with dark meaning.

So here we are, our last #Fahrenbruary Monday, no better time to listen to an upbeat song with a dark meaning!

I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show
And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?
Nothing changed at all
Nothing changed at all
We were caught up and lost in all of our vices
In your pose as the dust settled around us
And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?
Nothing changed at all
Nothing changed at all
Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?
Nothing changed at all
Nothing changed at all

Songwriter: Daniel Smith
© Universal Music Publishing Group

Thanks for reading & listening! Let me know what you think of Ariana’s choice below!