Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About... He Poos Clouds (But Were Afraid To Ask)

"Here's my attempt at summarizing He Poos Clouds in 10 sentences:

1. Nerds will have to hide their toys for the first two months of dating.
2. Although Link and I have a good relationship, he wouldn't feel at home in our godless world.
3. The condominiums in Toronto are poorly made and this city deserves buildings of higher quality.
4. The experience of watching a relative die while on morphine is terrible.
5. I hope that Jenna Bush suffers from crippling depression, leading to her own death.
6. Your love of Mishima is misinformed.
7. Women need to persevere in finding their own artistic language by raising their middle fingers both to male critics and also their predecessors.
8. Those who wish to see into the future are wasting their youth.
9. Those who spend all their time "honing their skills" are likely wasting their youth.
10. The preceding songs have all been written from a perspective that is not indicative of my true beliefs, and their theses are thus rendered worthless."
Owen Pallett

This is the second part in a very occasional series explaining what's goin' on, track by track, in some of the blog world's favourite albums. Today we tackle Final Fantasy, whose lyrics are sometimes inspired by Flann O'Brien's Pooka and Mishima's fascism, making him a bit confusing for those of us who care to know what his lyrics mean.
'He Poos Clouds' is based on the different schools of magic in Dungeons & Dragons, and relating these things to "day-to-day phenomena". Often the songs are also about personal experiences. Why is it called 'He Poos Clouds'?
"The reason that it’s named that is because it refers to any sort of blatantly overdrawn statement. Like saying to someone “he cries rainbows” or even “I love you”. I just kind of think it’s a good name for an album."

1. Arctic Circle
"Nerds will have to hide their toys for the first two months of dating."
Romance for nerds. Owen Pallett has described himself as someone who's "happy playing Grand Theft Auto all day long", so this is how to secure a relationship despite a slightly geeky prediliction for Animal Crossing and Nintendogs:
"Shields up! Shields up! Bar the door, and keep your dukes up!
Tell lies, tell dirty lies, tell diggory lies, until you're lying in his bed."
It's related to the school of abjuration, or using magic to protect yourself from harm.

2. He Poos Clouds
"Although Link and I have a good relationship, he wouldn't feel at home in our godless world."
Formerly called 'Illusion Song', this one is related to the school of illusion. Link is a character in Nintendo's 'The Legend of Zelda'. The lyrics decribe love and romance as experienced in an unreal, vide-game sense, something Pallett has often spoken about.

All the boys I've ever loved have been digital
I've been a guest on a screen, in a book
I move him with my thumbs...
Gotta find and kill my shadow self
Gotta dig up every secret seashell!


3. This Lamb Sells Condos
"The condominiums in Toronto are poorly made and this city deserves buildings of higher quality."




This is the contentious one, the one that all Toronto fans understood immediately.
Brad J. Lamb is Toronto's biggest property developer, having built over 6000 condominiums in the city. And some people don't like it.

"The issue is less with Brad in particular and more with the abstract notion of a condo developer. My boyfriend’s apartment is right below his, however, and I used some of their overheard yellings in the song, which is brutal, yes, but these condos make me wickedly mad. It is turning Toronto into the architectural equivalent of a Glade Plug-In.
Anyway, the song was originally titled “The Shroud Of Brad J Lamb” but I realized that I was addressing a fictional manifestation of the condo developer as an abstract rather than Brad personally, so I changed it. And… I think that “the developer” gets treated fairly in the song. He trades his hair and his mojo for magical powers and a taste for urban living. Not a bad trade, yes?"
The overheard yellings:
"You know I hate it when your friends are in the pool
Old money stinks, send those faggots back to Forest Hill
Contentment? What contentment? I am bald and impotent
Is that what it's about? Oh honey, honey, shut your mouth."

4. If I Were A Carp
"The experience of watching a relative die while on morphine is terrible."
Based on the idea of necromancy, this song is inspired by Owen’s memories of watching his godfather being “put on a lot of morphine [...and...] being plunged in and out of death.” He committed suicide when Pallett was 10.
"He was the greatest man I've ever known, but I have no fond memories. When I see stains on the sidewalk, that's when I think of him. At the same time, his act of killing himself has pulled me back from the brink. Whenever I start to feel those feelings, I imagine the most selfish person I've ever met, and I hold myself back." Lazarus was a biblical character that Jesus resurrected, for you non-Christian types.

Have you not been told of Lazarus? He felt the icy grip
And was brought back by a morphine drip, to tell the captain this:

"Tragedy! Tragedy! Death has you fooled...
Do you really want to know of the afterworld?"

5. ->
"I hope that Jenna Bush suffers from crippling depression, leading to her own death."
Jenna Welch Bush is the daughter of U.S. president George W. Bush and Laura Bush. She's been in trouble for false ID and underage drinking. I don't know what Owen Pallett has against her personally, if anything.
"Jenna dreams of being physically able/ To behead herself at the dining room table."

This is a shortened version of 'Hey Dad' which Owen plays live. The song details an exchange of letters with the narrator's father, who sees his son's art as "trite and schlocky... should have sent you out for hockey."

6. I'm Afraid of Japan
"Your love of Mishima is misinformed."
This song is related to the school of enchantment.
Yukio Mishima is a 20th century Japanese writer who Pallett both admires and dislikes: "I think Yukio Mishima is kinda the best and worst writer in the world. Because I really like his writing but I hate his ideas!". His work is often seen as part of gay literature, but he was essentially a fascist.

"But all my efforts have only made
An army of greedy gays
Will no one read The Sound Of Waves?
Oh, oh, I am afraid."

7. Song Song Song
"Women need to persevere in finding their own artistic language by raising their middle fingers both to male critics and also their predecessors."
A song about evocation, the lyrics encourage women to be free of their typical roles in a male-dominated society.
"Don't turn to motherhood so fast, you have been blinded
There's a word for all you keep inside
And though you try to hide it, we will write it!"

8. Many Lives-> 49 MP
"Those who wish to see into the future are wasting their youth."
Relating to the school of divination, this song reprimands those who let their lives waste as they wish. But not in so many words.

"I picture a man who lives in the past
He keeps a book of photographs
Of his younger self, clairvoyant self
(Son you should invest!)"

9. Do You Love?
"Those who spend all their time "honing their skills" are likely wasting their youth."
The one about transmutation, and the song that sounds like it scores some weird horror film. Continues the theme of wishing for change and being preoccupied with what is not real.
"There are things I cannot do
I cannot not not turn a skinny little shit
Into a winsome Brit who spent his youth in honest pleasure."

10. The Pooka Sings
"The preceding songs have all been written from a perspective that is not indicative of my true beliefs, and their theses are thus rendered worthless."
An effort to tie the different thematic strands of the previous songs together, through the evocation of the Pooka from irish mythology, and especially known through Flann O'Brien's 'At Swim Two-Birds', which was an influence on the album.
According to legend, the Pooka is an adroit shape changer, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying forms. It may appear as a large black goat (its name is a cognate of the early Irish 'poc', 'a male goat' and it lends its name to Puck, the goat-footed satyr made famous in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), but it most commonly takes the form of a sleek black or white horse with a flowing mane and glowing yellow eyes.

"The Pooka wings away
His power o'er me's at an end
And I put down the violin
I leave it down, never again!"

If I Were A Carp (live)
He Poos Clouds (live)
Arctic Circle
Hey Dad (live)
This Lamb Sells Condos (live)

Previous Final Fantasy Interviews - October 2005, and April 2006.
Previous Explanaions - Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About... Illinoise.
There's a great interview at Love Has No Logic.