The fall, the fall, oh God the fall of man
The fruit is found in every eye and every hand
Nothing there is nothing yet in truest form
We walk like ghosts upon the earth
The ground it groans

How long, how long will you wait
How long, how long till you save us all, save us all

Turn your face to me

The light, the light
The morning light is gone
And all that’s left is fragile breath in failing lungs
The night, the night
The guiding night has come
Uniting lover with his bride
More precious than the dawn

How long must we wait

Turn your face to me




Behind the Song:
The Fall is one of my favorite songs on the album. The first three songs are intended to bathe the listener in wonder and beauty. In The Fall, there’s not even an instrumental intro to buffer the change in direction of the album’s narrative. It just begins with the lament “the fall, the fall, oh God, the fall of man…”

I really like the lyric of this one, and it is here that we find the thesis statement for the whole album. “Nothing, there is nothing yet in truest form, we walk like ghosts upon the earth, the ground it groans.”

As magnificent as creation is, how can we help but notice the destructive side of it as well? Beauty exists, but so does evil. People have goodness in them, but they also can have extreme darkness in them, and this fruit is found “in every eye and every hand.”

This song is a lament to this creator that we’ve been singing to up to this point. “How long must we wait…?” is a question that comes from deep in our souls. Why is the world so messed up? How can there be so much beauty and so much ugliness? If you are there, God, why aren’t you doing anything about this? Or are you? Is this dark night actually part of a larger, beautiful story somehow? The longing expressed in the line “turn your face to me” is a longing for understanding, for things to be made right, for this creator to not hide himself, as it so often seems he does.

We were tempted musically to make this become big again, but we resisted. In fact, I can see us building it a bit more when we do it live; but for the record, we wanted it to feel kind of sad, but not necessarily tragically sad. Absence can actually be a testament to presence. I only long for those that I love, and I only love those who have been present with me in some way. If there was no one to love, there would be no one to long for. It is this mixture of emotions that “The Fall” explores. There’s still a beauty to it. The melody is one of my favorites on the album, and I think the strings and the oboe at the end are just gorgeous together. It represents so well what I often feel internally. Mixtures of love and fear, courage and cowardice, wonder and complaints… It’s not really the way I would prefer it to be, but that’s how it is, and I’m learning how to be content in the night.

-- Gungor