“Goddess of the Dayspring, Am I” by Falling Up, Saturday, August 20, 2022

There had been hints and tendencies listeners could pick up on from earlier Falling Up records. There was the occasional strange word choice on Crashings. There was esoteric storytelling on Dawn Escapes. There were the made up words on Exit Lights, the remix record. And for the band’s third studio record on BEC Recordings, Captiva, Falling Up delved into Greek mythology and science fiction. But for the band’s fourth record, Fangs! Falling Up presented a full concept record, this time without Bible verses in the album notes. This time fully indulging in world-building.

SOME OF US HAVE SEEN GOLDEN ARROWS POISED. Working with frontman Casey Crescenzo of cult-status progressive indie band The Dear Hunter, the sound on Fangs! steers the band away from the electronic and Nu Metal influence Falling Up had previously embraced. Before releasing the record, lead singer Jessy Ribordy shared the story behind the concept record. Ribordy explained that story is a prologue to the album, and the album is about what a traveler from another planet encounters. The lyrical content of the record, even being tuned into the backstory, is obscured with new vocabulary, almost coded like an Elon Hubbard novel, not that Falling Up is going to start a new religion. Fangs! was a polarizing record, signaling a mass exodus of fans who had witnessed Falling Up’s change in status from a massive mainstream Christian Rock band to a niche sound of sci-fi/fantasy, even stoner rock. 

Ophelia by John Everett Millais. Source:
Wikipedia Commons.

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ME FOR FLOWERS IN YOUR HAIR? In this C. S. Lewis/ Greek mythology/ Hamlet space opera of Fangs!, we come to one of the catchiest tracks on the record, “Goddess of the Dayspring, Am I,” the ninth track on the record. In the verse, the song is kind of an Odyssey retelling of the story up until this point, with the traveler recalling the adventure accompanied by an up-tempo guitar tremolo. But the chorus slows down; it’s a lament because the Goddess of the Dayspring has died. The traveler runs his hands over her dress; his hands touching her lifeless body, pleading with her to come back to life. The goddess is partially inspired by Shakespeare’s Ophelia, Hamlet’s lover who takes her life by drowning in a river after losing her sanity. When I was listening to this record in college, I always pictured Sir John Everett Millais’s painting depicting Ophelia’s corpse floating in a calm stream with flowers surrounding the body. Jessy Ribordy’s delivery of this loss feels authentic, despite the song being a complete work of fiction. But there’s no time for the grief to last; the song picks up with a rapid drumming as if the traveler runs off past the mourning courtiers to investigate. 

Read the lyrics on Genius.