How do you interpret The Fragile?

[Sesquipedalism]

I think these ideas would probably sound a lot better with earlier, non sequenced versions of the tracks?

Did we ever find out what Rotation was? I know Anomaly is now "TWOIT" and Stained is apparently "Underneath it All"?

This is why I take it to be a more abstract, less linear story than Spiral. I mean, for the love of god, he had to fly in a whole other person who wasn't him, who was outside of his head, who couldn't possibly grasp the intention behind each track as thoroughly as Trent himself, and let that guy put it in order. It's bound to be abstract! A collage, not a chapter book.

Departure?

Maybe not the best word? But if you consider "The Great Below" and "Underneath It All" as speaking about/to an ex-lover, he or she has clearly left. The "you and me, make it through" on "Somewhat Damaged" becomes a pretty obvious reference to the "you and me" who are in things together in, uh, "We're in This Together." And that song is exceedingly desperate. Like he knows things aren't going to last. Someone on ETS once suggested an unplugged version of the track. I argued and said that would change the entire mood. I was rebutted and suddenly saw the song in a different light. I'd never considered how hopeless that vocal sounds. Like when your relationship is clearly dying, and all of a sudden you start saying "I love you" every eight minutes.

...you could listen to the whole thing backwards, from RWD to SD.

When the reverse was suggested above, this was the first thing I thought of. I've never tried that. It doesn't work out well in my head. But who knows. I'm wrong a lot; maybe this is one of those times.

[Sesquipedalism]

Huh.

That's interesting you view WITT as exceedingly desperate. I've always heard that song as not just the most defiant on the Fragile, but perhaps in his entire catalogue (until that 'Everything' abomination came along ). That was the first song he ever did where I thought "Oh man, homeboy might actually "make it through somehow" after all..."

That was sort of my original take on it, too. Then I had that conversation. And I started thinking about the piano coda that introduces the "La Mer" melody and I began to take it the way some people are taking "Black Noise"—the plucking throughout the most contented song Trent's ever put together begins to degrade and become buried by the fuzzed out guitars that are lacking through most of the LP, but were all over Spiral and Fragi. Slipping into the "La Mer" melody really sells the hopelessness of the narrator's situation for me.

It might work.

Think of the movie 'Momento': start with the album at its ugly end, and work your way backwards in time to see how the protagonist came to be 'Ripe With Decay'

That only works if you read the LP as that teleological thing I mentioned, each song being a temporally progressive chapter. I don't care for that approach to The Fragile. I can't say it's the wrong approach, but I don't love it.

[StockAvuryah]

Huh.

That's interesting you view WITT as exceedingly desperate. I've always heard that song as not just the most defiant on the Fragile, but perhaps in his entire catalogue (until that 'Everything' abomination came along ). That was the first song he ever did where I thought "Oh man, homeboy might actually "make it through somehow" after all..."

I was reading this thread, and it's really good, lots of interesting interpretations of The Fragile, but Everything is beautiful. It's a great song. That's it.

I always found it interesting that both sides of the fragile (pretty much) end with "I can still feel you"

I'd add, now that Deviations 1 has come out, that the only lyrics on Deviations 1 are "I can still feel you", on Underneath It All.