Take

"Take" is the eleventh track on The Light the Dead See.

Lyrics

Dave's Take

Dave and Rich Machin talk about this song at the 3:41 mark.

My Take

Here is my take on "Take" (sorry, this is the only song that I can actually make this one joke on so I am jumping on it)! This is a short, little ditty that seems to be in an odd time signature that I can't place (maybe 3/8?) and whose lyrics are a bit of sage advice from someone who knows what's like to "play games with that devil." Right after Dave got clean in 1997 and was working on Ultra album, he described his state-of-mind at the time, saying, "I tasted the Devil and it burnt me, you know. Now I feel that God's back on my side. And I don't want to lose that feeling again. I've kind of got a naivety back again."¹ The delivery of the "carpe diem"-like sentiments carry a sense of both weariness and urgency at the same time and admittedly, it almost comes across like a swan song. If this were the very last track on the album, I would actually feel genuinely worried, but thankfully, it is neither! The song ends with a nice, little harmonica solo by Dave, the very first time we hear him play it on this album.

Music Video

A woman walks barefoot along a long hallway that has small paintings along the walls. She stops to look at each one, and every time she does, her face seems to show sadness as she is then momentarily transported somewhere else, assumedly in her mind. On the first painting, she is shown on a small boat on open water on a cloudy day. On the second painting, she is transported among some hills in a desert. Finally, when she looks at the third painting, she is transported to vast sand dunes. After this, she simply exits the hallway through some double doors.

My Take

This video was directed by Bernhard Wittich, a cinematographer from Peru, and was originally unknown to Soulsavers. However, Soulsavers later found out about it and allegedly liked it so much that they decided to premiere the video on ClashMusic's website.² So that's an interesting tidbit, you know; if you've got a talent for creating videos and you make one that happens to catch the eyes of Soulsavers, Depeche Mode, or whatever...you never know what could happen! Anyway, this video is extremely simplistic and there's not much of a plot to it at all. Like the paintings that the woman gazes at on the walls, it is bordering on abstract. But one can infer a lot of different things from the simplicity of it all. For instance, why does the woman appear so sad when she looks at each painting? Do they conjure up painful memories for her? Or does she, perhaps, feel overly nostalgic for a happier time? Each setting that she is transported to seems so neutral and tranquil. Not much is really going on in each one. And like the settings, she, herself, appears very tranquil and neutral, as well. She is all alone in them and she appears neither happy nor sad. I also find it interesting that throughout the video, the camera does not really focus so much on the paintings, themselves, as they appear blurred most of the time and are on camera for no more than a second or two, but rather, the focus is on the woman's face and the emotion on it. When paired with this song, the video evokes a very strong sense of both sadness and peace at the same time.

References

1. "The Needle and The Damage Undone", HotPress.com (1997)
2. "Soulsavers — Take", ClashMusic (February 28, 2013)