The title song of the 1987 release by FoTN is a dark evocative piece that spans aeons of time in its imagery. Whether McCoy intended all these webs of reference is known only to himself. The fact is, they are there for us to pick and choose those that fit our own personal mythos and make sense in our own frame of reference. That is precisely what I'm doing here.

I personally like the "Earth Inferno" (live) version of this particular song. We all hear different things in the words to these songs, and sometimes the words are (I believe) intentionally similar sounding to other words to weave layers of meaning into the stories they tell. This is what I hear on this version:

Cutting razor-sounding violins
Recalling cutthroat;
Razor sin

Keep in mind here that we're dealing with someone (McCoy) who is well aware of the visceral impact of movies, as evidenced by the spaghetti-western flavor of this release and the band's outward image at this time. Many of the spaghetti westerns that were made were actually westernized remakes of Kirosawa's classic "Samurai" movies, starring Toshiro Mifune. Even the dialogue is much the same - the kimonos replaced with chaps and the swords with guns.

Several composites of imagery/sound-bites come to my mind when I hear this. Immediately, the screeching, stabbing violins from the shower-scene in "Psycho." The synonymous sounds of the words "violin" and "violence" or "violent" seem to be intentional. Don't forget (if you didn't know) Sumerian is a shadow language, much the same as Sanskrit. Words that sound the same can have different meanings and the potential for puns and allusion is great. The evidence that McCoy does this is to be found in several of his songs. Following on with the Norman Bates scenario - Norman is considered and portrayed as a deranged soul, who has no conscience ("Won't need no conscience" in "Chord of Souls"), per se. He has, instead, a purpose. That purpose is to preserve and protect, as well as ressurect his (demon) mother, whose obsession is clearly the cause of his troubles - which he does by eventually donning her clothes and a wig. Think now of the call to awaken Khadulhu/Tiamat and "Psychonaut's" "pray for Leviathan" as McCoy"s feminine archetypal goddess/mother icon.

I am also reminded of a particularly chilling scene in Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel's black and white cult classic "Andalusian Dogs" (La Chien Andalou), where a couple in formal attire stands on a balcony watching the full moon. Slowly, a thin cloud moves across the moon and the man takes a straight-edged razor to the woman's eyeball. Its surreal motion mimics the passage of the cloud passing across the moon, as these images are echoed back and forth upon one another.

Cutthroats. The term conjures up visions of pirates, robber-barrons, and psychotic killers like Jack the Ripper - outlaws and aberrations of the human soul/psyche.

Razor sin. Slashers, slicers and dicers. Torturers of the Inquisition and Middle-Ages - artists - who specialized in inflicting cutting/bleeding punishments on their victims. There is a character like this in the Elric saga, whose name escapes me at the moment.

We're watching Heaven
as the sun goes down
Oh, I watch the sun burst,
it hits the ground.

Superb imagery here, viewed from the perspective of the primitive mind. Primitives lived in fear that the sun would not always come up, due to their ignorance of how these things work. Solar and lunar eclipses were cause for great sacrifices, conjurations and invocations. The sun going down across a flat expanse of land - such as a desert - appears to expand and become oblate. The light is diffused and dissipated by the thickness of the atmosph ere at this angle. Combined with a mirage effect, it could indeed appear to burst and die at each days-end. There were, in fact, priests in ancient cultures whose sole office was to invoke the dawn/sun, each day. These priests, by their sacred, secret invocations raised the dawn.

Dawnrazor
Dawnrazor, well how?

Asking "how." How, what? How do I release you?

Only in dreams abide
Been lost before.
Only in dreams have I
Been cut before.

It seems the Dawnrazor speaks here, telling us the secret of its existence. "I abide now only in dreams" - the dreams of the sleepers. In some versions of the Tiamat legend, she is cut in two and the two halves of her body become the sky and the earth. Zi dingir kia/anna kanpa.

Dark angel's born
Rest her soul!

Here, in the next to the last line of the song is spoken the key - "dark angel's born." Here is the subject of the song, which superficially is Lucifer. But the legend of Lucifer has many tie-ins, including Venus (the morning/evening star - dawn/sunset), which further translates down into the Inanna mythos, and eventually ties in with Tiamat.

The word "raze" means to tear down to the foundations; to demolish. Man was born by/in the grace of the gods/God. Men eventually fell from grace by the agency of pride - the desire to be as gods themselves; separate and powerful entities unto themselves; the desire for the knowledge of the gods. This was the downfall of the Watchers, as well. Like the Serpent, they gave Man knowledge that was the domain of the gods/God. Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to Man. For it, he was chained and bound, much like Leviathan, Azazel, Abadon (the Beast of the Pit) and others. In the Bible, the Serpent is cursed by God to crawl on its belly and be despised by/bruised by the heels of the children of Adam and Eve. Don't go looking for this knowledge. We are warned and we are put-off from seeking that which the Serpent offers. What better way to maintain the status-quo and the balance of the gods'/God's power than to make this knowledge seem undesirable - even scary and taboo?? This is the Great Lie, that forbids us to seek the truth.

I'd like to quote here from an excellent article at http://www.wynd.org/lucifer.html.

"So, the question remains as to Lucifer, just who, or what, is this archetype about? Let us face the music. "The old serpent of legend is nothing else than the Universal Agent, the eternal fire of terrestial life, the soul of the earth, and the living centre of hell..." Lucifer is the "Astral Light," the etheric womb of the world on which are retained all the myriad, countless impressions left by the acts, thoughts and aspirations of Man. Hence he "...becomes, with regard to Mankind, simply the effects of the causes produced by men in their sinful lives." Which makes Man himself the book? The astral map upon which the acts of the gods are written? A living Body Of Organic Knowledge? What else is the Universe? Lucifer as the Morning Star is, one might be forgiven for deducing, none ot her than our original archetype, the Sun itself. After all, what star heralds the morning, if not the Sun? Lucifer equates with Venus also, of course, and with the serpent of Kundalini, and is as such, in his most secret aspect, a female archetype, hence corresponding, alas, with the resurging Goddess "movement." But the fact remains that, archetypally or mythologically, and regardless of moral doctrines or religious dogma, Lucifer, or "Shaitan," (corrupted to Satan, meaning Adversary, by the Hebrews) is synonymous with the Inner Man: the Other, or Hidden God who is even now stirring in our sleep, whose dream has been the ghost-written history of our race, and whose awakening promises to be the long-awaited atavistic resurgence of the Aeon. Satan - Set - Pan - Lucifer - Mars - Horus - Ra - Appollo - Christ. And so on, ad infinitum. An exploding orgy of archetypes, all of which cons titute the fragmented parts of the human psyche: like Osiris scattered in fourteen directions by his evil brother Seth, only to be reassembled, some sunny day, by the Goddess Isis in her infinite wisdom and mercy? The book is only half-finished."

The magus must, of necessity, demolish (raze) himself as a common mortal man, with the thoughts and perceptions of his "sleeping" brothers and sisters. This is the heroic path - to go where others fear to tread - and it cannot be approached or committed to with conscience, fear or by perceiving the universe through the agency of the senses. He must approach by the Gates of Silent Memory. Man dawned bright as the morning sun on the horizon. His innocence was soon brought down by the Bringer of Light/Lord of Light/the Keeper of the Sacred Fire or Knowledge - he/she who offered us a way back out of dreams and into the full waking consciousness of the Absolute. But the gods play with us and live through us. They're not so anxious to bring their fun and games to an end. In the meantime, we are each of us stuck on this catherine wheel - this merry-go-round of violence, suffering, torture and pain. For the "sin" of wishing to bring to an end the cacoph ony and intrigues of Her children was Tiamat (rest her soul) thrown into the dreaming death of the Abyss. Why should the gods (Her children) treat Us any differently?