Backbone Practise (unpleasant reminder in a subterranean pathology department)

Words by: Anna Varney Cantodea

We are entering the operating theater of the familiar morgue: the student nurses are making a lot of noise, their voices echo from the bare tiled walls ...- I improvise a fainting fit: "I cannot bare these voices anymore ...!"

The tiny spineless spider, who really is a dog, has hurt herself - or did she get hurt? - something 'bout her back ...- oh, does she need a new one?
Torso-less she only consists of legs ...- much like a crushed little cross, a tiny crucifix.
So cautiously she's stalking now across the palm of my right hand,
merely a thin branch in the wind,
touching the wound ... where I had cut my finger.

I hand her over to the nurses, one of them - directed by the teacher - carries out the operation, for which I don't have the knowledge.
One day everyone must fulfill this very task alone, as it's the only way to learn ... and in the end become a master ... - yes, this means responsibility, and it's connected directly to stress and fear.

The little spider has her operation on a table that is decorated like a forest, all with thicket and fir trees ... -
and right beside the flashing lights and displays on the instruments.

So hear now of the very scene that happened right before this here:

An elephant stands on the plane roof of a tall cathedral ... very close to the edge.
"Climb down his tail, as if it were a rope! Have faith and confidence, believe that he will hold you!"
But the elephant is not anchored in the ground, yes, he might have the will to remain in position, perhaps doing everything in his power to hold me, not to slip and fall himself ... - but in my opinion this is hardly enough.
Can this be a question of trust, at all ?!?

Looking out of the window, while the underground moves down into the tunnel ...- a man, who has already passed the elephant-test, says: "Fear must be conquered, boy! Many of what comes up are merely old Fears of Death!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This has become my favorite song ever. I'm dead fucking serious. I literally just copied that from the booklet, word for word and used the exact grammar she did. AVC is the greatest song writer I've ever come across. You could spend hours dissecting the meanings and metaphors. Imagine trying to do it for a career that's spanned almost 30 years? Good luck. "LA CHAMBRE D'ECHO" Where the Dead Birds Sing is one of her best albums ever, too. A lot of people label this project as Darkwave, and it's really not. Sopor Aeternus, if you really wanna break it down, is Neo-Classical/Gothic Folk for the most part. What isn't actually played by the orchestra is programmed in electronically, yes. But that doesn't make it Darkwave. If synthesized symphonics constituted electronica, symphonic metal wouldn't exist. However, LA CHAMBRE and Flowers in Formaldehyde ARE actual forays into Darkwave. My hand is tired...

Rei~