![aleph symbol with title UNSONG](http://i.imgur.com/d9LvKMc.png")
[A picture of the Comet King, aged beyond his years, his face looking haggard but determined, lost in shadows. The text says “Somebody had to, no one would / I tried to do the best I could / And now it’s done, and now they can’t ignore us / And even though it all went wrong / I’ll stand against the whole unsong / With nothing on my tongue but HaMephorash”. Image credit to my girlfriend Eloise, who also made this picture of Sohu]
Thanks to the Bayesian Choir, you can now hear all of HaMephorash sung the way it was intended. Listen to them here.
Image link currently broken. This worked for me, though.
Is it working now?
Nope.
How about now?
Works now!
Works fine for me, but the formatting is screwy on my mobile phone — the image juts into the sidebar.
Probably not worth worrying about, though.
Did anyone have “Kings”? I think we were all wrong on this one.
Also, Four book total confirmed.
Is there somewhere we can find the full lyrics? I can only find bits and pieces.
One verse per book start.
It’s split into the title pages for each of the four books. Click on the colon in between the words “Book [roman numeral]” and the name of the book for the title page.
Now I’ve heard there was a sacred word
That Jala said, and it named the Lord
But you don’t really know of magic, or us
It goes like this – a tav, a resh
A fearsome joy, a fervent wish
The Comet King incanting haMephorash
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
(hay hay yud tav mem tav vav kuf)
A ship on which another sailed before us
She saw his flag on the highest mast
She saw a dream that couldn’t last
The Comet King receiving haMephorash
You say I took the Name in vain
And after that, I lost the Name
I gave it back to Him who holds it for us
But echoes sound in every word
It doesn’t matter what occurred
You never really lose the haMephorash
Somebody had to, no one would
I tried to do the best I could
And now it’s done, and now they can’t ignore us
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand against the whole unsong
With nothing on my tongue but haMephorash
Thanks.
What is “hay hay yud tav mem tav vav kuf”? I get that they’re Hebrew letters, and I guess the last one has to be kuf so it rhymes, but how did you pick the first seven?
First letters of chapters 3 to 10 are EEITMTWC.
I think it spells a word in hebew. I spelled it using an online tool and google translator said it meant “conflict”. Unfortunatly i didn’t save anything, so can’t check if I didn’t got something wrong.
Yes yes yes. Someone needs to animate this and put it on youtube and we can turn into one of Those Fandoms. Preferably working with the choir and your approval, but hey, I’ll like anything that anyone makes.
“It goes like this – a tav, a resh / A fearsome joy, a fervent wish” sounds like a Trump supporter rejoicing after the election.
Note that unsong is lowercase, possibly meaning the Sound Of Thamiel from earlier.
Yeah. UNSONG as an agency is too small a rival for the Comet King.
Especially considering that it’s an organization he started.
The overt meaning of “UNSONG” is “United Nations Subcommittee On Names of God”.
The kabbalistic meaning of “unsong” is “violent discord”, i.e. the opposite of music; the emblem of hell; all that actively creates chaos and perverts good.
This we derive from that passage in Chapter 5:
From ch. 55:
The picture’s fantastic, but the Comet King looks oddly female for some subtle reason. Does anyone with better art/anatomy knowledge know what it is in the picture that gives that impression?
Elfin/delicacy to features. Lips especially
Actually, he looks a lot like the original Khan.
God I love this so much it physically hurts.
When I read the bits of pieces of the lyrics over the course of the book I so wanted to hear it but I didn’t imagine I actually would. Amazing. Thank you.
Any chance I could persuade the Bayesian Choir to sing my little Secular Solstice song?
Your link seems broken, maybe it got filtered?
If you give us sheet music we will probably at least look at it.
Could you please publish the sheet music of the Hamephorash piece? Or you could send me by email if you prefer: cryptonomicon314@gmail.com
>mfw cover
Could… could she do the other three? And is there a version with no lyrics?
…
…on second thought, I’m not sure if he looks Indic enough. Although looking though Google Images results for ‘old hindu man’, they don’t seem to have a very distinctive look, as far as facial features go (hair aside). I don’t even know which ethnicity he’s supposed to look like anyway; in chapter 52, Sohu describes herself as ‘a quarter Hindu’ (which is a religion, not an ethnicity anyway) and there’s some discussion of The Comet King’s ancestry in chapter 43, but it’s not very conclusive. It may be either way. (And Scott can always try to wiggle out of this by claiming that The Comet King got his looks from Raziel…)
A great illustration regardless.
He does look a lot like I imagined Comet West after reading Chapter 17.
Translation of the final verse to Hebrew:
היה צריך, אני התחלתי,
עשיתי כל מה שיכלתי
עכשיו סיימנו, והבאנו יום חדש,
אפילו שהכל החוויר,
אבוא מול כל האנטי-שיר
בלי כל מילה, רק עם שם המפורש,
Literal back translation:
It was neccessary, so started,
I did everything I could,
And now we finished, and we brought a new day.
And even though it all paled,
I’ll stand before the anti-song,
With no words, only Shem Hamephorash
Full song translation here
Excellently done. Translating rhythm and rhyme is always tricky. “Anti-song” as a replacement for “unsong” to make it scan was very clever.
Would someone be up to reading this (even without singing it)? Very curious how it sounds like, especially after Aegeus’s comment.
I feel like I should recognize the tune, but don’t. Also: Awesome.
The tune is Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen, which Scott was also consciously filking. The arrangement derives from a string quartet arrangement we found, but was reworked by our director Blake Jones and by Kat Walsh.
Well, now I feel dumb. Thanks, though.
Is filking even a verb? I thought filk songs were songs that circulated at comic cons an such. What does it mean here?
Yes, filk is a verb, meaning to create this kind of song.
See the 2nd definition on wikipedia.
Thanks, always learning 🙂
One thing I love about English is the practice of verbing nouns :).
Mr. Wolf, my dear friend? Is that you?
Not a mention of the practice of nouning the verbs? You must be full of fail…
Even though I’ve heard the original Hallelujah song, I still for some reason keep imagining how the HaMephorash would sound with metal, really fast and with screamed lyrics. And yeah, each time I imagine the Comet King wrecking Hell in some way, it is with the Dragonforce’s “Through Fire and Flames” playing in the background. Maybe the only way to defeat unsong is by channeling the power of the METAL GODS!
In my head, it has the same tune and tempo as the original Hallelujah but the lyrics are screamed, as in the last verse of Kurt Cobain’s rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”.
By the way, why “tongue” and not “lips”?
(And I’m keeping that quote. Even when it all goes wrong, I’ll stand against the whole unsong..
I’d guess because the original has “tongue” there too.
Absolutely lovely rendition by Bayesian Choir; it’s exactly how it should sound.
Now I want Unsong TV series.
(I’ve been listening to it on a loop for the better part of the day now…)
Yes, very moving. Almost brought me to tears!
> Now I want Unsong TV series.
I assume that the opening credits are to the tune of HaMephorash?
The way I imagine it, this song would be perfect for ending of a later season.
Is anyone else bothered by this? To me, it seems like 1. Bragging about your romantic life in an inappropriate context 2. Minimizing her role as an artist, since it gets slightly subsumed in your relationship and 3. Breaking the timelessness of this site/story — what happens if you break up?
I don’t want to start a pile-on, and more importantly I don’t know how she’d prefer to be credited, but this rubs me the wrong way. I’d be much more comfortable with “Image credit to Eloise (@econokitty)” or similar, and let people know about your personal lives through other means.
No, it seems like a perfectly normal way of talking.
Ok, fair enough. It was posed as a question. Though in response, I’ll say that while it might be a normal way of talking, I think this is a context that makes sense to be a bit more formal than conversational.
Still, I will note I have entirely succeeded in not starting a pile-on 🙂
It’s indeed a normal way of talking. Still, I agree with your objections 2 and 3 – but then I’m an introvert: I’m not curious about people’s social lives, and (by projection) I expect that to be mutual by default. 😐
She requested to be credited in this way.
I liked it. Love to have authors personalized a bit. Even if something changes she still will have been your girlfriend. Get point 2 about the “farmer’s wife” syndrome (she’s a farmer too, after all, so it is a little silly to give her a separate category) but I think it is fine here. I do have a quibble, though. I though The Comet King was ethnically Indian???? (as in India Indian).
The bayesian choir’s rendition is an interesting one. The arrangement sounds a little like church music, with the way it’s harmonized and the variations on the original theme. I don’t usually like those kinds of renditions, but it’s very well done, especially the female voices. I wonder if this is intentional – if Unsong turns out to have a happy ending it would be the proper way of singing it. The ending sounds rousing to me, maybe too much? The crescendo and the beautiful line of the female voices is probably what gives it the “rousing” effect. It sounds like the thing you’d sing when going to war with hell to eliminate human suffering, not something you sing while coming home defeated.
How many people does the choir have? In the beginning I guess the male voices could use some reinforcement to get a smoother sound, although I kinda like the sparse sound of this rendition. I’ve always imagines this song as Cohen would have sang it, never as a choral piece, so maybe I’m just saying nonsense :p
Also, apparently Bayaseian choir = Bayarean choir? Clever!
Good drawing Eloise!
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