Supermoon

**Genre**

"Supermoon" is a multi-part song written by Mikaela Thorn, recorded under her alias ThornBrain. It was released on her fifth album, *Rise in Love*. The segments are separated in the tracklisting for ease of listening, but they are considered part of the same suite.

## Segments

1. "Supermoon"
2. "Corvid Clouded Eyes"
3. "Woke Up Seeing My Killer"
4. "Rainborne"

## About

"Supermoon" is written to be a tighter suite than "Bloodstar" with the tracks directly connected in story and style. The title segment and "Rainborne" are built off a drum pattern inspired by Jaki Liebezeit's drum work on Michael Rother's *Flammende Herzen*, and the acoustic guitar is played in a slightly more impressionistic style, a leftover from the album's original plan to be more impressionistic a'la Claude Debussy and Joe Hisaishi. "Corvid Clouded Eyes" is written to sound like what sleep paralysis feels like, inspired by the soundscapes of early Pink Floyd and Krautrock artists like Neu!, Can, and early Kraftwerk.

The dog barking in the transition to "Corvid Clouded Eyes" is slowly run through a vocoder in reference to "Dogs" by Pink Floyd. The riff to "Woke Up Seeing My Killer" is made to sound like a spaceship burning in Earth's atmosphere, in reference to PhilosophyTube's Cosmonaut character, see below. The song's explosive, emotional coda is inspired by Linkin Park, whose singer Chester Bennington had committed suicide in 2017. The line "not a death shiny and chrome" is a reference to *Mad Max: Fury Road*. The title of "Rainborne" is a sideways reference to one of Thorn's favorite games, *Bloodborne*.

### Story

The suite follows on from "Bloodstar" and "Disassociation" as Thorn wakes up from the dream and struggles to get back to sleep as she begins having suicidal thoughts. She mentions being unable to breathe or lie on her back, referring back to her blowing out her diaphragm in 2018, though the injury took on new relevance in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thorn enters sleep paralysis in "Corvid Clouded Eyes", which is based on real hallucinations she's had: her cousins' dead dog sits on her chest and breathes in her face, simulated by a low organ; nearly inaudible voices in the left speaker say "Are you okay?" and "Get up" while poking her in the side; and the drums clatter and crash to simulate struggling to move. The lyrics in the rest of the suite about "rain that isn't there" refers to the times she's hallucinated hearing rain outside despite it being sunny when she snapped out of the paralysis.

"Woke Up Seeing My Killer" has two significant inspirations: 1) PhilosophyTube's "cosmonaut" character and her series of videos about suicide and mental health, abuse and trauma, and her eventual coming out as a transwoman, collectively called the *Blackstar* trilogy after David Bowie's album; and 2) Thorn's dad waking up during surgery in 2018 to remove early-stage colon cancer and seeing the cancer on a screen.

During Thorn's paralysis, she hallucinates a cosmonaut appearing on a screen and encouraging her suicidal thoughts; multiple lyrical references are made to the videos. She considers succumbing to these thoughts before letting out all of her built-up frustration in the coda. The line "I want to be thrown miles way" is a reference to the album outtake "Miles Away".

"Rainborne" has Thorn finally decide that she will keep living, but if she's going to stay alive, she might as well finally come out as trans and start living the life she actually wants. References are made to her previous records: "the boy with the thorn in his brain" from "For Not 206" on *Buried Secrets & Old Lies*, "what is the right way to do everything to you, girl", and "still building worlds made out of others', wishing your own was parallel".

## Lyrics

### Supermoon

Lying awake for hours

I decide

How would I approach the end

Holding my arms over my head

I can't lie on my back in bed

'Til I can breathe again

I want to live

Too many more months before I can live

I want to leave

Look at the options fall through the sieve

Some are found in blood and air

Maybe some are borne in rain

Lying awake for hours

I try

To recall the skybound people

Past the ones who die

Who are all of these beloveds

I don't know

All I think of lying here

Is that's how I might go

I want to live

Still asking if I want to live

I want to leave behind

All the damns that I give

Let's all learn to fly

By falling to our deaths

Some are borne in blood

Some are borne in air

Listen for the rain

Rain that isn't there

### Corvid Clouded Eyes

Whose body is that floating by sideways

Pool of rainwater in their mouth

My parents and the dog on my chest

Just say

And jab me in the part of my side

That buzzes and aches

When trapped in a paralyzed state

Goddamn comatose haze

Dead dog breathe in my face

Body floating by sideways

Shouldn't they take it back

### Woke Up Seeing My Killer

Now we're all

Stuck in space

Now we're all

Burning up

On re-entry

Suit up if you dare

I don't know what they said

To make my eyes shoot open

When I should have been out

But I know what I saw

On the monitor

And what they were talking about

Seeming formless

Spiderwebbing out

Finally it

Fills a spacesuit

Takes a face on

That I recognize

One that asks me

If I'll execute

Lie awake for hours

Should my time be spent

Stuck alone in space

No strong voice of dissent

Treat the lost like a coward

For the utter collapse

That they underwent

And honor them

In the same fucking breath

By calling what they did a commitment

Cosmonauts not fit to fly

We burn up

Just trying to get home

Can't fly this can

While you're suffering

Not a death shiny and chrome

There he is now

On the monitor

Fills the suit's arm

He salutes me

You can bawl for me

I am happy

All that I need

No body

I woke up

And saw my killer

I woke up

Then saw her

There's that body

Floating by sideways

What did they assign

I've never had

Such a close look before

Could that body be mine

Well

Should I

What're you

Waiting for

Well

Don't look at it

What're you

Waiting for

We are cosmonauts

We're not fit to fly

Just come outside

Dead dog on my chest

God it's hard to breathe

I want out of my house

I want out of my skin

I want out of my circle

Don't know where I want in

I want out of my mouth

I don't want what I've been

I want to be thrown miles away

Thrown miles away

### Rainborne

Lying awake for hours

I decide

It's not how I want to die

Blush of relief

I'm a coward

But something still has to say goodbye

The boy with a thorn in his brain

Said I'm still not sure what I found

The boy was named

The thorn was named

The boy pulled the thorn from his brain

Said it's time for me to come out

The thorn was named

She left his name

Pieces of myself

Keep getting stolen

It's now time to reclaim

You accept me for the person who

Needs to change that I am

We'll start with the frame

What is the right way to do everything

To you, girl

Still building worlds made out of other's

Wishing your own was parallel

And what's the wrong way to not do a thing

Every night

This time tomorrow, you'll show 'round the house

Your long black dress and white lapel

Some are borne in air

Listen for the rain

Rain that isn't there