where is the one without you things fall apart

Them without you.

The Story

The next spiritual challenge that the artist must come to terms with and embrace is his own mortality. Can he accept the fact of his own demise? As he acclimates back to everyday living, his health doesn't allow him to fully immerse himself in daily activities with family and friends as he once did. He begins to feel that although he is there, he is not there. He feels invisible; like a ghost; dead to what is around him. He then begins to realize that this will one day be a reality. He will one day die. Any moment could, in fact, be his last. At first, he is fearful and angered by this. Now that he is healing he begins to think that it all could be taken away without warning. Although he feels invisible already, he begins to imagine his family and friends without him. He hears this in the sung phrase, "Them without you." He meditates on this for some time and embraces it and realizes that, in the end, it doesn't matter. If there is no past or future and the only thing that exists is the present moment then there is no reason to fear anything at all - even death. After some meditation on this, acceptance begins to take hold of him and he sees that his own mortality injects life into every moment. After this realization, the trumpet line is heard once again signaling that the character has reached an understanding and acceptance of his own mortality. He begins to celebrate and makes peace with his own demise.

The Music

To represent this musically, I chose to create some type of mild musical conflict in the rhythm section. The tile of the song is a play on words and is grammatically incorrect on purpose. Where is the one refers to the music. The rhythm of the song from the start creates conflict. The kick drum feels out of place before the full beat enters. This is to represent how awkward I felt acclimating back into everyday life. I became slow in my walking, my eating, my overall movements. My wife and daughter always having to wait for me, hearing me complain about yet another pain that seemed to come out of nowhere. The tempo of my life was different. I felt like a ghost watching my own life and I thought what's the point of trying so hard when one day this will all be over anyway. The chorus of the song represents the anger and terror one feels when they realize that they will in fact one day die. The song goes between C Major and A Phrygian. The choruses are in A Phrygian. In the 2nd chorus, we here a high pitched melody. This represents the pinnacle of frustration and anger. There is a meditative moment in the piece when everything quiets down at the 2:24 mark. We hear the sung phrase: "Them without you." This presents our character with his 3rd spiritual obstacle. When the beat reenters, we hear the chorus melody now being played in C major (instead of the darker key of A Phrygian) signifying that the character has accepted and embraced his own mortality and realizes that death is the very reason that in every moment life should be celebrated to the fullest and unless we understand death to the fullest, we can never really understand the immeasurable beauty of living.