Cygnus Rock Band - Valhalla (Fire and Tales)

The no. 1. song. The fan favorite. The official antidepressant. The Song You Can Not Resist To.

All this with a reason.

This song is the embodiment of Beauty in its barely less than 3 minutes. It brings you everything Cygnus is so lovable and irresistible for. Strong start, joyful theme, beautiful arrangement, a long row of instruments, two powerful, warm male voices, wonderful lyrics, flowing energy, that kind which brings a smile on your face even on a gloomy day and kicks you right there out of your depression, hugging the anxiety out of you and eventually making you believe that this world is not as hopeless as it seems and there is really some beauty that is worth fighting for.

That's what I call miracle. Not many bands can do it. I think I wrote about it just now, in my previous blogpost that most bands and their music helps you mostly to grow a steel armor around your heart. 

Meanwhile Cygnus reaches out for you with gentle, yet firm hands, making you feel safe by pouring beautiful, very complex and high quality music on you, with the only hope that it will make you feel better in this world. No aggression (even when there is, it's still surrounded with beauty), no vulgar or agressive lyrics. No hopelessness, no anger, no pain. (Even where these things appear, hope always comes with them hand in hand, like in this song.) There are no negative or doomed songs, neither musically, nor lyrics-wise. Their songs are full of poetry, hope and vision, and they manage not to flip over to the other extreme, with this "hooray-optimism" or forced, maybe even calculable "hit songs", just to serve the audience. This very fine, very delicate balance is one of the many secrets I'm so fond of about them. For me it's the purest manifestation of art as well as humane greatness and intellect.

Have I mentioned how much I love them?

The song's start already grabs you by your hand.

It's a very small thing, most people probably don't even recognize it. It's Ruxx counting in by hitting the cymbals. Seemingly insignificant, but I love it, and I especially love the idea of not cutting it out from the final edition of the song. It gives a fresh vibration for it, as if it was performed live somewhere. Wonderful idea, there can be more like this on upcoming albums!

Then you're pushed right in the song's arms so strong that you literally fall there. 

Everything is there, in its full beauty.

The symphonic orchestra.

The drums.

The bass.

The guitars.

The tiple.

I swear, even a flute is hiding there somewhere, teasing your ears.

But most of all, and this is the real magic of it all...

...I can be wrong though, so please, correct me if I'm wrong...

...but I sense here a Royal Theme™ appearing. The most beautiful, most precious secret of this song.

No, I won't tell what it is 😒 who knows, knows, if you don't, then you kindly dust off your braincells and do that certain, unusual thing you rarely do called "thinking".

No, you can't resist. Don't even try, you'll fail. Your blood starts to run faster, your heart is throbbing. Give in, dear listener. Fall into the arms of all these instruments and let them love you.

Because soon they suddenly quieten to give place to the humane voice.

Behold, dear listener. The real beauty starts here.

Deneb is singing, only the rhythm section is accompanying his voice along with the tiple, dancing around his mellow baritone.

This is pure magic how he's singing here. This happens very rarely that he shows this shade of his multi-colored, rich voice. I remember, once I compared it to a whiplash because whenever he sings like this, it hits. It doesn't hurt, on the contrary, it makes you feel thirsty for more. It ignites a fire in you, and you just want to burn. It finds a way through your ears, and like a silky snake, it slides down to your heart. You hug it, hold it tight, you don't want to let it go, you want to hear it forever. Again and again. It pushes its stings into you, but instead of poison it heals, and while healing it makes you addicted. You crave, you beg for more, but then it just smiles at you and disappears.

So far I heard Deneb singing like this only twice apart from this song. One was the previously linked Rolling Stones-cover, the other was The Perfect Blend. Rare gem, hard to discover, but once you find it, it's yours forever.

I know very well that you, average listeners out there hear absolutely nothing from it. That's why I say it all to you, so you can nicely clear the wax from your ears and give it that kind of respect it deserves 😒

Then Ruxx's sharp tenor takes it over. It's full of energy, he is backed by the guitars, the ever-dancing tiple and a flute, and as his voice rises higher and higher, from the peak of it you fall into the chorus and its luscious, sweet, delightful richness.

For me the chorus brings another hidden gem and it's in the lyrics. Let me quote it.

"This is Valhalla, dying wasn't that bad"

This. This little line, the first line of the chorus. 

I can't imagine anything more poetic than that.

I try not to get into any metaphysical or spiritual enlargement on the subject, simply because the extent of this blogpost can not and won't include any subject that has no tight connection to Cygnus's music. But perhaps, just in short I try to explain why I find it this important. 

Death is one of the greatest mysteries of humane experience along with birth and love. Religions were built to find explanation for it, science also tirelessly wants to find the answer why we die and what happens afterwards with the essence that makes us who we are. Still, despite all the efforts humankind couldn't make a single step forward, it all remained unknown; and the Unknown, together with the fear of it is part of the human nature. It's useless to deny it. For this, humankind fears death since we can remember, because it means the very end, once and for all, with no way back.

And here we have this song, full of lavish beauty, instruments, wonderful humane voices, practically singing about death. As if the song shrugs off all the doubts, all the questions, all the desperate searching for answers in the history of humankind, laughs with its melodic voice and say "just come with me, get rid of all your worries - they are pointless anyway, why should you worry about something that's not even around? What's inevitable is inevitable, worrying about it leads to nowhere... come with me instead!" reaching out with its gentle hand towards the listener.

And you know the song is right. It's singing so beautifully into your ears, it brings the wonderful, rich harmony of all the instruments and humane voices to you, giving it all to your hands that you throw away your depression and your anxiety, you let go of the darkness you kept holding on for almost your entire life and you hold them all tight to your heart with tears in your eyes, while trying to believe or at least to realize what just happened to you. 

A song appeared in your life. A song that's less than 3 minutes long and it healed everything specialists and therapists (and you yourself) were struggling with for years. You feel the blood running in your veins. You see the Sun shining. You smile. 

You believe.

But most of all you try to figure out how you can be this very lucky that you met these musicians and this song, and in the meantime you know that from now on they'll be a part of your life.

Or they'll be entirely your life, but details are available only for super extra VIP club members.

The song doesn't let you go. It holds your waist, looks into your eyes, laughs and you follow it as it takes you into the dance. You don't even want to resist, you just hold it and you fall in love with it more and more with each and every tune.

Deneb is singing again, with his rarely-heard, magical voice, tickling your heart, with the tiple playing hide-and-seek around his vocals. Ruxx appears then, his bright, powerful tenor again gets the company of the guitars and the flute, while the tiple pulls you up to the heights of the drummer's voice, to push you back into the arms of the chorus.

No time to rest or to find your breath, because the solo is on the way to swipe off your tears and sweat. It laughs, the sunrays shine through its fingers as it soothens you. The strings gather together to answer it, and if you have your ears and your heart wide open

I know you don't 😒

you'll hear again The Royal Theme™.

It's hiding. Not easy to catch it. But once you find it, it will smile at you like a thousand suns.

The chorus returns once more to hold you and to promise you that it will stay with you in your heart forever.

And you believe it. You haven't realized, but in the meantime you gave your life into its hands. And the song holds it tight, protecting it and you see the leftover of the darkness and sadness that was still somehow hiding in you slowly dropping out through its fingers like some sticky, black contamination.

You believe in magic again, the magic of life and beauty, brought to you by a song about death.

Here I would like to say a few words about the video as well. This song in fact has got 3 versions, the official album version, the official videoclip that was released in 2021 and the so-called home office version. I picked this latter one and I explain you why.

In the meantime you can listen to the album version if you click or tap here, while the very popular, fan-favorite, bit of a short movie alike official videoclip is here.

Gloria rules! 💓🎕

There are three reasons why I put here the home office version.

The first reason is simple. I know you all out there and that you've already forgotten about this version. Don't say a word, I know you have and you need reminders like this every now and then 😒 

The second reason is that in this version during the stanzas the bass hits me so heavily on the groints that I can't resist - but it's something absolutely personal and all those who know me know as well why it's so important for me.

The third is merely sentimental. Here in this video these musicians play the song practically live; this way it's a unique, one-of-a-kind, only-here-only-now version for the song. For this, for the freshness and energy that flow from it I feel as if I was also there, in that little studio with these wonderful rockers, watching them recording the song, listening to them playing their instruments and singing, quietly but shamelessly sinking into the beauty of this song, absorbing it all and then keeping it in my heart. I hope you, dear Reader will also enjoy it.

Oh, and remember to put it on loop.