"nightwish" Lyric Analysis

I've fallen in love with the Black Dresses song "nightwish" off their 2022 album Forget Your Own Face, and I wanted to have a go at analyzing its lyrics! :-)

I'm not any sort of Black Dresses scholar, and I couldn't tell you how much meaning they typically invest into lyric writing; but regardless, isn't everything much funner when you find meaning in it anyway?

Rook:

I used to want to mean
Something to somebody
But people never see
The side of you you want to be
And when the air is smoke
And when the sky burns out
I hope no one is looking at me
When the sun explodes

Devi:

Perfect blue, put my PayPal in a coffin
Small dick, small balls, what do you want from me?
Fuck up every so often
Yeah we got problems every so often
I'm grateful for the time we had to do childish things
Like making songs:
Like this one.

Stars shooting overhead as everything in the universe falls apart
How romantic, like kissing under fireworks, but...
As our bodies burn to light
As our bodies turn to raw energy with no identity, uh...
Let's meet back here again
We can do a little show
We can sing a couple songs
We can fight over how the songs go
I know it's not much
For all the things in the world
Not much, but let's just have-

Let's just still try to have fun.

lyrics via bandcamp

nightwish is, broadly, about taking back control in the face of mortality.
In Rook's segment, she sings about struggling with perception; unable to make strong, meaningful connections because "...people never see / The side of you you want to be". The idea of wanting to be seen as your true self is flipped when Rook instead hopes to elude being known altogether. By hoping that "no one is looking at me / When the sun explodes", she's shying away during her most vulnerable moment. Done with the game she struggled with during her life, she closes off at the end of the world- a subversion to her plight.

In Devi's segment, she advances the idea of discarding the struggles faced during her lifetime. She first ushers out societal obligation, such as the pursuit of money ("put my PayPal in a coffin"). I'm not sure what is meant by "perfect blue", but I'd imagine she may mean the sky or ocean. Something celestial or beyond us. As the world ends (supposedly through the death of the sun) our superficial society is taken away, such as the need for money and corporations. Next, Devi sheds insecurity. Men have compared penis size as a way of valuing each other's dominance, masculinity (often conflated with value), desirability etc. Despite being an uncontrollable trait, shame shrouds the subject. As Devi admits: "Small dick, small balls, what do you want from me?" the audience should not only consider the stigma around penis size, but the vulnerability of the statement from Devi as a trans woman. At the end, she is not concerned with passing or playing stealthy. Throw out societal expectation-- she asks uncaringly: what do you want from me?

In contrast to Rook's wish to be unseen during her last moments, Devi asks for connection and closeness. The explosion of the universe is taken as romantic, intimate. "...like kissing under fireworks..." As their inevitable deaths close in, as they're "turned into raw energy with no identity", they've reclaimed control over their lives. Having lived under the thumb of meaningless rules, they take initiative and make plans for the future, despite knowing what awaits them. "Let's meet back here again / We can do a little show".

The song serves as a reminder to the audience to take control of your life. There is no need for paralyzing fear of death, or wasting time and energy appealing to the eye of others, but rather one should live freely. 
>It's a pretty cliche takeaway, but I really admire how it was done in this song. The imagery of romance as the universe collapses in on itself along with the aloof way the words are sung creates a feeling of vulnerability and intimacy, a staple of Devi McCallion's work.

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