Terminal Frost

On the theme of AMLOR...

I believe that you could correlate it with the story of Man's descent into madness and destruction. This is a universal sort of story. For instance, you can take the Christian metaphor and think of it as the shift from Eden to Apocalypse. However, I think the best, most fitting (and most likely intended) meaning is actually more literal than that, and the key is in the song name "Terminal Frost"--which suggests nuclear winter...a permanent, killing winter.

"Signs of Life"...this is the very beginning--it starts quite beautifully, but there are suddenly hints of darkness (represented by a low synth tone). "When the childlike view of the world went, nothing replaced it..." We lost our innocence--so now we have to search for something else.

"Learning to Fly"--Very literal...humankind tries out its wings, progresses, grows...but unfortunately, learns some very nasty things and lets war on the loose.

"Dogs of War"--Literal again...a very close look at the horrors that we've learnt to inflict upon each other.

"One Slip"--Now the nuclear technology has emerged. It takes only one mad instant when we surrender to our passions (represented in the woman to whom Mr. Gilmour is speaking...a sort of archetypal "temptress"?), to initiate a nuclear holocaust--only a "momentary lapse of reason" that will haunt us forever. It only takes one crazed individual to push the button. Very telling is the acronym for the deterrence policy of Mutual Assured Destruction...MAD. It is this madness that, in the nuclear age (AMLOR was indeed written during the Reagan Cold War era), could bring on disaster. Perhaps Cold War tensions are escalating to very dangerous levels...one push, and everything will fly to pieces.

"On the Turning Away"--This is the spot of hope, what is currently holding off the madness. Someone (or several people) realise what a destructive coldness we have in our society, and they rally to stop the escalating situation. The idealists gather and try to raise a voice against the madness. Very telling of how effective their efforts will be is the last line: "Is it only a dream that there'll be no more turning away?" Dreams have no force against reality...

---If you own AMLOR on tape, this is the side break.--

"Yet Another Movie"--This is significant, that the side break is placed where it is. For here is where the final descent begins. Remember "One Slip"? Da_Floyd_Fan mentioned the recurrence of "one". One moment of madness...one sound, one single sound. So--the war has begun...perhaps conventional at first (in the Cold War, the fighting only became "hot" through countries that the two superpowers used as proxies, such as in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan I.). With the technology we had at our disposal (not quite the weapons we have in 2001, but still very nasty), the carnage and slaughter is everywhere, and the situation is spiralling out of control. Here we get the first allusion to the Holocaust, through the Casablanca dialogue. The two loudest, most clearly audible lines are that way for emphasis: "If we stay here, nine chances out of ten we'll BOTH wind up in a concentration camp." And we know, too, that the worst is yet to come, but when it does, it will be damning. "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, the rest of your life."

"A New Machine, Part I"--Suspended in waiting, and numb to all of the terror, a single man is simply waiting for the end to come. He no longer cares about fighting for his life. Where? When? He does not care. The sound is sterile, cold.

"Terminal Frost"--With a surprising lack of noise (perhaps we cannot hear it because the blast so deafened us, or perhaps we are numbed from what horrors have come before), the bomb is dropped. The nuclear holocaust becomes a reality. We remember the last terrible mass killing in our history...the Second World War. And we remember what almost became a motto, as a voice becomes clear: "Never, EVER again." But it has happened again, and this time, it is like nothing mankind has ever seen.

"A New Machine, Part II"--Now that it is done, this lone man...perhaps a lone survivor (Was there not a movie like this, where only one man was left standing after a nuclear holocaust? Judging from the movie allusions earlier, might this be what we're supposed to think of?) simply sits and waits for his life to end--for we will see that in the end, there is nothing left to fight for.

"Sorrow"--The last survivor is finally himself claimed by madness. He torments himself with "what ifs", with dreams of how things once were. Perhaps he was one of the idealists from before who tried to speak up...or maybe he was a warrior who learned his mistake too late. It does not matter--he is utterly and completely humbled, crushed to the same level regardless of his former circumstances. He berates himself before the backdrop of a spoiled world. The planet is shrouded in eternal, leaden clouds, both from the effects of nuclear winter, and from all of other munitions expended. "an oily sea" serves as a "grim intimation" of his final madness and death. The promises of the beginning--those signs of life--are gone and broken. It is finished.

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Despite all of this meaning, AMLOR is not a true concept album--it is a themed album. Rather than having the plotline given directly to us as Mr. Waters would (as in The Wall) it is incumbent on the listener to dig for the meaning, to play with possibilities and fit them together like a puzzle. My guess is that, as the head of the project, Mr. Gilmour put this together in a very subconscious manner. He knew in the back of his mind what he was doing, but it is not the kind of driven, directed style of Mr. Waters. This is not any less of an accomplishment--both, in my mind, are quite valid and enjoyable techniques by which to create an album that engages the mind. AMLOR is much, much more complex than many give Mr. Gilmour credit for, and because of the bitter feelings surrounding the band at the time, we are less apt to look. In fact, in light of all of this, can we ever be entirely sure that AMLOR has none of the characteristics of a true concept album?

_________________
"But now the day has broken, can see in better ways,
A path leading to the light, a hope that never fades.
All power to the brave."

--"Along the Shoreline" by Richard Wright

__________________
"And with these words I can see
Clear through the clouds that covered me
Just give it time then speak my name
Now we can hear ourselves again..."

WrightSatellite #1