Feel like a worm! - A JJ2 Post -

Have you ever felt like a worm? Blindly wriggling through the mud in a vain quest for existential closure? I know I do, nearly every day! Thankfully there's a song for that:

"Wyrmlands" - HMLTD

This is a pretty wacky song, as from the beginning it weaves a complex and chaotic song both lyrically as well as musically. HMLTD has 2 albums released since 2020, and each have been concept albums following a single story, and this song fits in as the third song in their second album 'The Worm'. I'm not going to dive into the overarching story of the album (something around a metaphor for battling depression and anxiety), but just know that this isn't the only worm-themed song they have.

Musically, we begin with a fairly jazzy style, with saxophone and a curious bassline that lead into very cool, 'distant' sounding vocals, kinda like you're in a seedy jazz club with the band playing in the corner. The lyrics themselves hardly make sense, other than painting a picture of a dark and foreboding existence the people in the Wyrmlands live, it seems as though there is something to flee from. Something bad is coming and they've experienced it before.

 My favorite part of the first half of the song comes with the lyrics:

"Some men are strong, some men are weak

The more they look, the less they see:

Livestock hanging from the cranes

Dancing dogs that talk like men

Talking of their higher needs

A woman's touch, a vultures beak"

 There are some really cool elements in this section. First is the way that this stanza is sung, where the odd bars are sung by the main vocalist, and the even bars are sung by a rough chorus including the main vocalist (bolded above). I love this because it sounds like a play on what is being sung 'The more they look the less they see' where the majority of the men singing only 'see' (sing) half of what is written. Another interesting element is that the things that they do see don't seem to be the complete picture, ignoring the issues and deeper implications that exist in the things that they choose to focus on. The weak men don't see the hanging livestock, or the needs of the dogs, instead focusing only on the surface level: the novelty of the talking/dancing dogs, the sensual nature of a womans touch, the danger of a vultures beak. 

I could be reading too much into this part, but it would be WMW if we didn't overanalyze songs here 

 Afterwards, the song begins to deteriorate slightly, with erratic percussion and the vocals being bellowed (which is super fun to listen to). Suddenly, we regain composure with a brief moment of clarity; no erratic sax, no crazy sounds, just some gentle piano with a bassline in tow, and the drums to keep the tempo. The vocalist comes back in to sing in a way that makes you feels like you've just remembered something you forgot.

"The ground just fell beneath my feet

And there I was, amongst the worms

I watched them as they fucked each other

In the mud OH

And it felt just like looking in the mirror

For the first time in my life

I knew what I was and I cried

Why am I pink?! Why am I blind?!

Why do I writhe inside this body?!"

 The first time I heard this I laughed so hard because it genuinely seemed like a joke. But listening several times over, I feel like there's a very message they're trying to get across. The character in the story has spent this whole time differentiating himself from everyone else, assuming that he was better in one way or another. But something happens and he has a stark realization that he is just like everyone else, you can feel this in the song with the line 'In the mud Oh', the end of this line is played at a higher volume, with a high pitched sound as well as broken glass sound effect. I've never heard such a visceral, audible depiction of the feeling of realization before; absolute masterclass production by HMLTD. 

The song closes with a return to the chaos we had earlier, followed by children singing for some reason lol.

On the surface, Wyrmlands can seem like a silly song, and that's what I originally thought when I first heard it, but taking some closer looks can reveal a tremendously complex song with lots of very interesting elements going on that you don't really notice on a first or second listen (which I love by the way, I like to re-listen to songs until I despise them thank you very much). 

Hope you liked this WMW! Josh-two-out-of-three out!