Arc Words / Music

Arc Words in Music.

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• The Mega Man (Classic) rock opera from the self-titled CD by The Protomen has two: "Hope rides alone" and "we are the dead". Both get darker meanings by the end.
  • And in the prequel, The Father of Death, the arc words are "Don't turn your back on the City."
  • Emily... A crowd has gathered here...
• aespa songs often contain terminology from the SM Culture Universe.
• American Idiot, by Green Day: "Rage and Love"
• American Murder Song brings us "Murder! Murder! Murder! Murder!" and "Murder be thy name."
• Blind Guardian lyrics feature the word "blind" frequently throughout all their lenghty career.
• Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, by My Chemical Romance, had the phrase "the lights go out" repeated continuously through the album, as well as "summertime" and "kill the party". It has not been confirmed as to what these phrases mean.
• The Who:
  • Tommy: "See Me... Feel Me... Touch Me... Heal Me..."
  • Quadrophenia:
    • "Love, reign o'er me!"
    • "I ride a GS scooter with my hair cut neat. I wear my wartime coat in the wind and sleet."
• Nine Inch Nails: "Nothing can stop me now / Broken (machine)."
• DragonForce: Steel, Fire, Flames, Soul/Spirit/Heart, Glory, and the phrase "So Far Away". They don't use "So far away" on their album The Power Within, but it was in the demo version of Heart of the Storm.
• Dream Theater's Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory has "open your eyes". Initially, it's a reassurance from the Hypnotherapist that Nicholas can end his regression therapy at any time. He later repeats it to end the session. Nicholas never learns, but the audience does, that these were Edward's last words to Victoria before killing her, and also what the Hypnotherapist says before killing Nicholas, thus completing the circle.
  • The Twelve-Step Suite also has several, including "hello, mirror, so glad to see you, my friend", "now that you can see all you have done" and "feel your body breaking", among many others.
• On Metallica's "Black Album", the word "you" and its variants appear a lot.
  • Metallica has had lyrics repeat themselves in different songs separated by years on a few occasions. Whether it's a deliberate call back or a Dark Reprise, or just coincidence that, after thirty years and ten studio albums, words ended up repeating themselves is tough to say.
  • Damage Inc appears to be a song about nonconformity and sticking up for yourself against authority, and has the line "Fuck it all and [[ClusterFBomb fucking no regrets, never happy endings on these dark sets!" St Anger is a song about anger destroying a person, and contains the line "Fuck it all and no regrets, I hit the lights on these dark sets." The call back suggests that the rage against mindless conformity and authority in Damage Inc have lead to the destruction sung about in St. Anger.
• The Paper Chase's Now You Are One Of Us features "It's out there, and it's going to get you" numerous times (it's even the last line of the last song).
• Christian Hard Rock band Resurrection Band's final album has two sets of arc words. "It is my right, I am free" and "I'm satisfied, here I'm alive". fitting because its a Concept Album
• Vocaloid producer mothy loves to link some of the songs in the Evillious Chronicles with the mysterious mini song, "Lu, Li, La". It's almost always sung by characters played by Rin and Len, but there are instances of it being sung by other characters as well. It links the "Clockwork Lullaby" series but appears in other songs, as well as being a spell in the Light Novels. Some others include:
  • "If we could be reborn..." (exclusive to the Story of Evil) and "Utopia" (Across the franchise.)
  • "What in the world is 'evil'?"
  • And "Just before his death a solitary man built a small theater in the forest".
• Putin-P, another Vocaloid producer, does this in the titular Putin-P Series, with phrases such as "Lalalala Happy", "Don't stagger; just for today it's our Sunday", and "Don't leave me alone".
• Frank Zappa; Joe's Garage: "The white zone is for loading and unloading only, if you gotta load or unload, go to the white zone."
• On The Wall, by Pink Floyd, a number of arc words are repeated through and through. Among the many are "oh, baby", in a melancholic voice, "mother/mom", and one of the most famous, "bricks/brick in the wall".
• Variations of "What did I do to deserve...?" appear on all albums of Coheedand Cambria.
  • The phrases "One last kiss" and "Believer" surface in multiple songs in Good Apollo Vol. 1.
• Sound Horizon's Märchen wrings more meaning out of "イド" (which is pronounced "ido" and can mean well or the Freudian id, among other things) than should be possible - so much meaning, in fact, that a character can waltz in and deliver two entirely non-sequitur lines, and somehow tie the entire backstory together^note Well, probably simply because he is an impulsive sailor named Idolfried.
• A slip of paper bearing the words "to whom it may concern" appeared in several iamamiwhoami videos, and on the album art for each of their singles relating to the "bounty" arc. Their song "u-1" contains the phrase in Spanish, "A quien le corresponda," in its lyrics.
• Several lyrics by Adam Duritz of Counting Crows reference an ambiguous girl named Maria.
• Iron and Wine's extended narrative song "The Trapeze Swinger" includes the refrain "Please, remember me..." in every verse, always finished in a different way. From the beginning, it's clear that it's a Love Nostalgia Song about the speaker reflecting on his changing relationship with a woman that he's known since childhood. It isn't until the last verses that it's revealed that the speaker is actually dead, and is narrating the song from the afterlife as he attempts to climb his way up from Purgatory. He deeply regrets that his relationship with the woman ended with a quarrel, and now wonders how his surviving friends and family on Earth will remember him after his death.
• The Op Po Si Ti On album With uses the words "it leaves a mark" extensively in the music and cover art.
• The phrase "doe eyes" abounds in many of Los Campesinos! songs.
• "Todo mundo" (Spanish for "whole world") pops up a few times across David Byrne's career. It's part of the lyrics to "Make Believe Mambo" from the album Rei Momo. On the album Feelings, it's written on Byrne's jacket in the back cover photo. And it's the name of the record label Byrne created in 2010.
• "Day After Day" by FromSoftware's FreQuency.
• "If you open your eyes, you'll see it's Heaven." For the entire album Ghosts and Spirits, based on The Great Divorce.
• Tim McGraw's song Don't Take The Girl has the titular words.
• The Fall Out Boy album Save Rock And Roll uses the phrase "I'll check in tomorrow if I don't wake up dead."
• Tears for Fears: On The Seeds of Love, the verse "The sun and the moon, the wind and the rain" appears in no less than three different songs ("Woman in Chains", "Year of the Knife", and "Famous Last Words"). These elements are also visually depicted on the cover, and the original title for the album itself was The Sun, the Moon, the Wind and the Rain. It's also included in the band's live cover of "All You Need Is Love", featured on the Going to California concert film.
• Of Monsters and Men: The song "Little Talks" has "Though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore", which is repeated every chorus.

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