A Warm Place: The mystery continues..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

This has always fascinated me: the audio sample buried under the beginning of the track, repeated approximately six times before the ambiance fully kicks in..

Most believe it says "The best thing about life, is knowing you put it together"

While others on places like Reddit claim it's saying "The worst thing about life, is seeing where you ended it"

http://www.reddit.com/r/nin/comments...the_beginning/

Others have played around with the audio in search of clarification: https://m.soundcloud.com/2072trioptimumcom/life-35

Other possibilities: "The best thing about life, is always being near you" and "The worst thing about life, is no one wants to be with you"

Anyone have anything to add, or want to take a stab at it? The first two examples are the most fascinating, as you could presumably hear either, depending on how you view life..

[Shadaloo]

I recall hearing "The best thing about life is knowing you created it" when I really tried and cranked it up to 11 some years back. I gotta try again with the 2017 DE.

[sheepdean]

I just hear a looping message "buy war bonds"

[Kulerage]

I always heard "The best PART (not thing) about life is *dunno this*".

[Ryan]

Let's all spam Trent on twitter asking the same question.

edit: done

hashtag - #spamtrentwarmplace

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Don't think spamming the guy on Twitter is going to reap the best results here. Highly unlikely he'll respond.

Just to prove that theory, I DM'd him on Instagram asking him for clarification of the line, lol

I wonder what Management makes of this mystery: @Leviathant @ItsJustDave @Lt. Randazzo @orestes @marodi

[marodi]

Don't think spamming the guy on Twitter is going to reap the best results here. Highly unlikely he'll respond.

Just to prove that theory, I DM'd him on Instagram asking him for clarification of the line, lol

I wonder what Management makes of this mystery: @Leviathant @ItsJustDave @Lt. Randazzo @orestes @marodi

Just to clarify: I was Management on nin.com; I never was on ETS.

As to the question: I can't make it out. I don't have the best audio equipment and anyway, since I'm very old, my hearing has deteriorated. But hey, good luck with asking the big guy!

[Ryan]

Dude, he's left us in the dark about Tension since 2013. The least he can do is unravel this mystery for us!

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Trying to be serious here; I really want to know what people think the voice is saying at the beginning of the track!

Fans have been debating this elsewhere for years. I'm surprised it's never been discussed on ETS before..

[sweeterthan]

Trying to be serious here; I really want to know what people think the voice is saying at the beginning of the track!

Fans have been debating this elsewhere for years. I'm surprised it's never been discussed on ETS before..

It probably has been discussed before but we had a board reset in 2011 after a server crash.

[BenAkenobi]

Fans have been debating this elsewhere for years. I'm surprised it's never been discussed on ETS before..

I'm offended. I was trying to debunk this shit several times, uploaded amplified segment of the track. Finally about 2 years ago i thought it finally settled in as a "nin urban myth" of sorts. It's almost physically painful to read about this argument yet again
p.s.
I examined the "definitive mix" when it came out too, it doesn't help. Too muffled to be of any resemblance to the "best thing about life is bla-bla-bla..."

[Prettybrokenspiral]

I'm offended.

Haha what else is new

I was trying to debunk this shit several times, uploaded amplified segment of the track. Finally about 2 years ago i thought it finally settled in as a "nin urban myth" of sorts. It's almost physically painful to read about this argument yet again
p.s.
I examined the "definitive mix" when it came out too, it doesn't help. Too muffled to be of any resemblance to the "best thing about life is bla-bla-bla..."

I'd be interested to hear why you think it's irrelevant to the track/album in general and why you've relegated it to a myth, if you're willing to explain.

It's obvious something is being said six times at the beginning of the track, and that every interpretation we've heard has been deep af, which could be said about the album in general.

Not saying you're wrong to believe it's nothing, just curious as to why..

[BenAkenobi]

Haha what else is new

We don't want to get there, do we? Haven't you posted once how japanese The Fragile CD (digitally the same as any other press) sounded very different to you?

I'd be interested to hear why you think it's irrelevant to the track/album in general and why you've relegated it to a myth, if you're willing to explain.

It's obvious something is being said six times at the beginning of the track, and that every interpretation we've heard has been deep af, which could be said about the album in general.

Not saying you're wrong to believe it's nothing, just curious as to why..

Something is indeed being said six times, that is true, but i wanted to stress that the words are too few (3 or 4 words) to contain the 8-word phrase that people were throwing around in discussions.
You linked the repeated sample on soundcloud page, similar graphic presentation works in various audio editing software and i struggled to pinpoint where the syllables - consonants, vowels, the stuff we say and hear - falls on the graph, second by second.
After hundreds of repeats it just didn't match for me. The "phrase" i keep hearing is "austin powers, he's here" and it's sort of funny because that refers to a comedy character from the future - those obviously aren't exact words but i write them here for concreteness - not for a textbook answer, mind you!
just saying that trying to hear "best thing about life" got me nowhere.
you might argue that English is not my native language but i think it actually helps in this case. my audio setup is okay, too (if beyerdynamic makes okay headphones, that is)
all i want from this discussion is maybe a discovery of the origin of that old explanation that made in into just about any fan FAQ. maybe we've been hoaxed for 23 years, you know?
i just wanted a little less bullshit both in nin and life in general, sorry if sometimes it looks harsh - i don't mean it to people that never did me any harm. peace everyone

[opal]

I'd say I subconsciously heard this sample before and knew it was there, but I really just had to go back and listen to it again to really hear it.

Crazy to think that more than 20 years after its release, you can still go back to that record and discover something new in there.

[reznovka]

[...] https://m.soundcloud.com/2072trioptimumcom/life-35

[...]

I don't understand anything clearly but it sounds creepy as f*** when it's on repeat. Kinda like a satanic cult trying to brain wash me...I'm curious what's said there. Maybe Trent will give us an answer in 20-30 years or so.

[Kulerage]

\

Others have played around with the audio in search of clarification: https://m.soundcloud.com/2072trioptimumcom/life-35

\

I swear that I can hear another voice in the background, as if the line was recorded at some party and it picked up the people in the background

[botley]

A LOT (I'd say, like, >40%) of the background sound design elements on The Downward Spiral are just random clips of movies sampled from videotapes and manipulated into background loops. Chris Vrenna did a lot of this work, maybe we should ask him what it might be.

[quietime]

Others have played around with the audio in search of clarification: https://m.soundcloud.com/2072trioptimumcom/life-35

"The worst thing about life for most of you will be here."

[Prettybrokenspiral]

"The worst thing about life for most of you will be here."

"The worst thing in my life is seeing that you are not there"

The worst thing about life is knowing you'll be here/there.. ?

[Jon]

This has always fascinated me: the audio sample buried under the beginning of the track, repeated approximately six times before the ambiance fully kicks in..

Others have played around with the audio in search of clarification: https://m.soundcloud.com/2072trioptimumcom/life-35

Is that 3-note melody part of the sample? I had never noticed that until now.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Is that 3-note melody part of the sample? I had never noticed that until now.

Hard to say..

It sounds cool as hell though. Maybe just something picked up in the sample, maybe something else.

What we know for sure: something is being said. Somebody wanted it there six times at the beginning of the track. Somebody involved in the creation of the album (Trent, Chris, Flood, Sean Beaven, etc.) knows what's being said and its meaningfulness in the context of the track.

Otherwise, why include it at all?

[Leviathant]

My personal take: This content of the sample is not relevant to the composition of the song or the album that it appears on. It's a piece of soundscape, nothing more.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

My personal take: This content of the sample is not relevant to the composition of the song or the album that it appears on. It's a piece of soundscape, nothing more.

I want to believe that's not the case...that the sample was obviously put there for a reason; in an instrumental track, no less.

All of the interpretations that have been posited for years or have been offered in this thread could easily tie in to the TDS narrative arc, I think..

[Leviathant]

I want to believe that's not the case...that the sample was obviously put there for a reason; in an instrumental track, no less.

Remember how people went nuts trying to figure out what the 'sample' in The Wretched was, and it turned out to just be radio interference that got left in the mix?

I'm betting it's something like that. Maybe the ambient noise in the sample was the main reason for including it, and the quiet dialogue was just too difficult (in 1993/1994) to filter out.

[Prettybrokenspiral]

Remember how people went nuts trying to figure out what the 'sample' in The Wretched was, and it turned out to just be radio interference that got left in the mix?

I'm betting it's something like that. Maybe the ambient noise in the sample was the main reason for including it, and the quiet dialogue was just too difficult (in 1993/1994) to filter out.

lol naaaah, not buying that. They could have just replicated the ambiance melody if it was an obscure sample and nobody would have been any the wiser.

That's the beauty of it being a mystery, I guess: we can each believe what we wish..

[frankie teardrop]

it's actually "the best part of waking up is folgers in your cup."

[Detunez]

at first listen to the loop my brain feeds me the words: "worst ... in my life is seeing that you are not there".

After letting it settle i get:
"worst thing in my life is feeling that i am nothing"
"worst thing in my life is seeing that you are not there"

[Prettybrokenspiral]

I studied this last evening with a pair of Grado headphones, across four different versions of the album

I'm 99.9% sure "The best thing about life, is knowing you put it together" is what's being said. You can hear it best the fourth time it's recited when the opening ambiance dips to a lower volume.

Case closed, at least in my case. I'm an adult and can figure these important things out for myself, though it's always interesting to hear what other people interpret as to what's being said at the beginning of the track..

[Prettybrokenspiral]

In all seriousness, someone give an honest reply: how does the vocal loop that is 2 seconds long contain the phrase that's at least twice as long?
I mean, "The best thing about life..." doesn't fit in. I tried reading it with stopwatch, it's longer.

I suspect some wise guy in the 90s when internet was in its childhood thought it was cool thing to put in a FAQ, but he or she lied - and got away with it.
And people still program themselves to believe something they read but not heard.

Why further spread the lies instead of trying to find truth? Let's conduct a blind test for this. Show (rather, play) the loop to people unaware of its "history".

If somebody is sure the loop says what it's rumored to say, then point out on its graph where each word falls.

Because the line is broken into two parts.

The first part (the loop you're hearing) which is the more audible of the two, is "The best thing about life.."

After which, the narrator pauses for a beat before the second half of the line (the one you're not hearing) "..is knowing you put it together" is uttered, much softer and less discernible, but still there.

Read the comments on Youtube under all the various Warm Place clips and there's some pretty vivid discussion of the matter. Until the individual multi-tracks of the album are made available one day, or until Alan Moulder himself can be cornered and made to answer, we'll never truly know 100%.

But I still believe it's "The best thing about life, is knowing you put it together." You can brush that off based on a remark I made last year about an SHM-CD of the Fragile and Seasonsofthesky can facepalm my posts until he's blue in the face, but neither of you is supporting your theory on the matter better than anyone else is, so..

It's obvious to anyone who listens more than casually to the track that something is being said at the beginning, and it's repeated at least six times. It's not just some accident that we're fooling ourselves into believing.

For anyone who's keen to the matter, there's some pretty neat discussion about the hidden line that transpired at Burning Souls the day the TDS SACD remaster was released in November 2004: http://96.0.6.181/sreviews/display.php?TrackID=28

[seasonsinthesky]

For anyone who's keen to the matter, there's some pretty neat discussion about the hidden line that transpired at Burning Souls the day the TDS SACD remaster was released in November 2004: http://96.0.6.181/sreviews/display.php?TrackID=28

The best (or, rather, worst) of all the bullshit slung around in that thread is the interpretation of Eraser as an abortion. Jesus fucking christ.