Sacred Ground

Davey’s penchant for overly identifying with religious themes is well-documented in the body of lyrics he has produced to date. (Some examples that jump to mind: casting himself as the morning son/sun/star, i.e., Lucifer; themes of the fallen/falling [angels and also in love–‘fallen angels’ ((i.e., the damned)) and ‘falling in love’ are often conflated in his writing, just sayin’]; ongoing grappling with concepts of sin, salvation, faith, heaven, and hell.) I think he expresses his deepest insecurities and fears using religious language because he hasn’t yet resolved the conflict between what he thinks, what he believes, what he was taught, and what he knows about himself. Almost every album has a song about his disdain for religion, yet he spits Christianity metaphors faster than Switchfoot. Which begs the question: why is he still railing so hard against a religion he gave up on decades ago, if it isn’t an ongoing, unresolved conflict?

I could–and probably will–write whole posts just about his conceptualization of himself as an innate sinner, as a fallen angel, as the morningstar; about his whole dynamic where he writes himself and Jade as angels. Here, I want to focus on Javey Heaven.

Javey Heaven (noun):

The beautiful, golden, glowing space where the Javeys were happy together, where Davey could see the glimmer of salvation through their love, and knew without a doubt that this was true, this was forever, this was worth damnation. Obviously tainted by nostalgia as he looks back on sepia-toned absolution. Now, used as shorthand for their relationship and what was lost, what Jade cost them.

Wake Up, Open the Door, and Escape to the Sea

Blaqk Audio’s first album, CexCells, offers us a unique slice of history. Davey and Jade began working on material for Blaqk Audio back in 2001, although they were busy enough with AFI that they didn’t devote serious attention to the project. So CexCells, released in 2007 (shortly after Decemberunderground, right around the time writing for CrashLove was beginning), is like Javey trapped in amber. Some of the material speaks plainly of their break-up and the apparent transience of it, the way they fall again, again, and again into one another, the feeling of a temporary apartness that cannot last, because the narrator of the songs we hears still believes in his heart that they are forever, their love is eternal. That with time they will resolve this difference too, as they have overcome all other disagreements and fallings-out. Some echoes the more recent themes of Medicate and other songs about Davey’s method of self-medication using meaningless sex.  And other material is older, hearkening back to the Davey who was writing for Sing the Sorrow, who was vibrantly in love and assured of eternity worth damnation, even as he battled ongoing depression and disillusionment that love had not cured him (see Shan’s thoughts on Sing the Sorrow for more on that).

So, there’s a lot to be taken from the lyrics of CexCells, and perspectives on very different periods of Davey’s life all on one record. And I want to go through all of that in an extremely detailed, disturbing way. But the journey of a thousand conspiracy facts is begun with a single lyrics meta, so I’m starting with thoughts that the song Wake Up, Open the Door, and Escape to the Sea stirred up while I was running this morning. Shall we begin?