Lyrical Analysis: In Flames – A Dialogue In B Flat Minor

Intro:

Hoo boy. This is gonna be rough. For all parties involved. Kind of like a bisexual bondage blood orgy. But in that regard, I suppose that it also has the potential to be extremely enjoyable for all of us!  At this point, content warnings on my writing projects, are basically  like viewer discretion stickers on Cannibal Corpse album covers. By the time you see the cautionary label, you should probably already know, by proxy, what you’re getting into. Almost all of my writings tend to mention mental illness, addiction, and other heavy subjects, whether it’s my fiction, personal poetry, editorial articles, or even my music reviews. You can probably tell by the title, artwork, or my preceding reputation, that you’re in for a wild ride. 

Obviously, I’m entitled to write and express myself freely, however the everloving hell I want. However, readers are also entitled to the basic common courtesy, to be informed about triggers that they may not want to see, which is fair. So please be aware of the following vulgar language, personality disorders, substance abuse, and other harsh topics. 

Analysis:

All you see is me, breathing fire

Breathing fire is like all of the hurtful things that I do, and hateful things that I say, when I’m sad or angry. I’m just like the dragon in a faerie tale, but even worse. The words that burst out of my mouth when I’m upset or hurt, could easily decimate an entire village to smoldering ruins of ashes and embers. My caustic words have certainly burned quite a few bridges! 

I know I’m the villain of this story. I’m Frankenstein’s misunderstood monster.  The only thing worse than a manic episode, is doing damage control in the aftermath. I have to go on a whole ass apology tour to spare everyone else’s feelings, while my own needs and wants remain collateral damage. 

High functioning depression sucks, because it’s like society believes you even less. I shouldn’t have to humilate myself with a public meltdown to “prove” that I’m actually mentally ill. But since neurotypicals are apparently so hellbent on getting receipts for my condition, be careful what you wish for. If you want to be on the business end of a scathing wall of text at the wee hours of the morning, or get bitched out in person in front of everyone, then by all means, keep doing what you’re doing. You really want me to show you the insufferable horrrors of my inescapable internal dialogue? Then take my hand, baby, and follow me to hell! Fools dash where angels fear to tread. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Hell awaits ahead. 

Spiders are my favorite animals. Even more so than cats, dogs, elephants, pangolins, unicorns,  behemoths, chimaeras, hippogriffs, and manticores. I just simply love and adore them so much! Just like arachnids, I too lurk in dark secretive corners, from whence I weave my webs and catch my flies. Even though you can probably squash me, a single toxic bite, will be make you pray for death. From Arachne to Anansi, the mythology and mysticism behind these gorgeous creatures inspire me to no end. 

However, in this particular context, spiders seem to be negative symbols. They are portrayed as bad omens, predicting impending doom. Similar to the Biblical “writing on the wall”, a morbid prophecy of ineffable fatality. A mental health crisis feels less like the spider, but more like the fly, trapped and helpless. 

I am terrible at remembering names and faces. I know, it makes others feel bad, but I promise I don’t do it on purpose. Trust me, I feel awful and embarrassed whenever that happens. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve once (or twice) literally walked into a mirror, because I didn’t even recognize myself! 

I was at a gay bar in Santa Fe, either Rouge Cat or Blue Rooster, I don’t recall which. But I wasn’t even drinking that night, which makes my mistake even dumber. I saw a cute chick, a little ditzy, but hell, I’d still tap that. We awkwardly kept getting in each other’s way trying to get to opposite sides of the room. I was about to compliment her tattoos. They looked just like mine, only backwards! And that’s when it hit me. Sad, I know! 

Even when I try to run away from these problems, they seem to follow me, wherever I may roam. Sometimes I’m so confused that I get lost trying to find a friend’s house, even if I’ve already visited a thousand times before. I get lost when traveling anywhere, even with a GPS. I can be in a location that I’ve known for years, but it’s as bizarre and unfamiliar as a distant alien planet from the far reaches of outer space. It’s terribly disorienting, to constantly misconstrue long time friends, familiar places, and mundane everyday objects, as completely unrecognizable. It feels like going off the rails on a crazy train. 

Telling me that the voices in my mind don’t actually exist, is like me telling you that the phone in your hand doesn’t actually exist, or that the furniture that you’re currently sitting in isn’t real, or that your best friend is a hologram, or that your entire family is fake. If I hear, feel, touch, see, smell, and even taste these experiences, of course I’m going to trust my own senses! 

That’s one of the most horrifying aspects of hallucinations and/or delusional paranoia. You don’t even realize that you’re hallucinating, or being paranoid, or acting delusional! From my perspective, it feels like everyone else is being purposely obtuse, and pretending not to perceive something that’s obviously right in front of them. What if everyone sees and hears what I do, but they’re just lying about it, because they don’t want to be involuntarily committed to some kind of psychiatric facility? But of course, it’s crazy to assume that everyone is secretly conspiring against me in such a manner! Unless…?

The feeling of non-existence is so impossible to describe, but I shall make my best attempt, regardless. It’s like every particle of my very being is dissolved into thin air. It feels like water evaporating and disintegrating into nothingness. It’s like I’m a hollow shell of a human, an empty husk. It’s like the freezing temperature of absolute zero is in the pit of my stomach. It’s like my heart and head are devoid of any thoughts or emotions. 

Again, breathing fire reminds me of my vicious, venomous vitriol which I violently vomit as a virulent virago. But, sadly enough, no matter how problematic my 3:00 am texts are, or my explosive public outbursts, I’m actually holding back! For example, if I sent a single snarky sentence, I probably deleted an entire paragraph that was exponentially worse. 

Hell, I even have to nerf my own cries for help. For example, if I send a message saying “I’m thinking about hurting myself”, the original version which remained unsent, probably said something more emotionally manipulative and guilt tripping, like “I want to slash my useless arms open with a rusty razorblade, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I’ve learned from experience, that lashing out like that, almost always backfires, and only serves to make the situation even worse. 

So I regret to inform you, as out of line and unforgivable as I can be, my raw unfiltered thoughts are somehow even worse. (And of course , that includes this very article, the original version of which was significantly darker). You get the watered down diet version, but I can’t escape my own brutal toxicity. 

If I’m rude to friends, they can block me. If I’m disrespectful to a lover, they can break up with me. If I’m unprofessional at work, they can fire me. If I’m problematic to my own family, they can disown me. But I can’t block, break up, fire, or disown myself. I have no choice but to live with myself, all day every day, for the rest of my life. The closest I can get to escaping myself, is temporarily numbing the pain with weed or booze or sex or gambling or whatever. 

You say that those voices don’t exist. But they say that YOU don’t exist! So either you’re right that the other voices are all in my head, or the voices are right that “reality” is fake, or both you and the voices truly exist but just on different dimensional wavelengths, or else you and the voices are both figments of my imagination. Each possibility is equally disturbing. 

These feelings of confusion, frustration, and helplessness can be soul crushing, and all consuming. The situation seems hopeless. But these bleak tjoughts almost always fade in time. Slowly but surely, emotions like hope and love, creep and crawl their way back into my life. 

Trying to describe a psychotic breakdown, is like trying to describe a car crash, while I’m still in the wreckage of the vehicle, as it’s still getting crushed and falling down and flipping over, and also everything is on fire. Everything feels painful, scary, chaotic, confusing, and overwhelming. And even if anyone reaches out to supposedly “help”, I naturally assume that they have ulterior motives. After all, when passersby slow down around an active car accident scene, they’re probably not good Samaritans, helpfully and heroically here to save the day. They’re just curious, to point and gawk at the show, exploiting human suffering for entertainment value. 

But now, I at least have the wherewithal to understand what’s happening. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel fairly powerless to stop it or control it. But at least I kinda sorta semi know what to expect. 

French philosopher Renee Descartes once famously posited: “I think, therefore I am.” So even if literally everything else is a simulation, at least that one thought exists for sure. Nothing is real unless you think and feel it is.

The chorus repeats one final time, echoing the endless loop of being trapped within a vicious mental spiral. Ruminating on the same toxic thoughts, over and over, like a broken record. 

Outro: 

The key of B Flat Minor is infamous for being very dark, bleak, and somber. A prominent example is Chopin’s Sonata 2, also known as the funeral march. Nowadays the song is parodied in cartoons and memes, caricatured as a melodramatic, pretentious, archaic, and old fashioned relic of the past,  which takes itself too seriously. But if you remove the modern lense of edgelord irony and doomer cynicism, it’s actually a heartbreakingly lachrymose and melancholy piece of music, mourning mortality and permanent loss. 

A Dialogue In B Flat Minor follows suit, in a contemporary sense. As a melodic death metal band, In Flames usually writes catchy riffs, epic solos, and sweeping interludes. But this song is very dissonant. Even when you get used to the unusual rhythm and modulated key changes, it always seems to catch me off guard. Like when you’re watching a creepy thriller, suspense, or horror movie, and even though you’re expecting a jump scare, somehow it still  suddenly surprises you. Once more, I am reminded of the quiet devastation, of finding something safe and secure, but it still somehow comes across as frightening and unpredictable.