Hey everybody.
First of all, thanks to everybody who have spent their time into listening to the track, I will forever appreciate and be thankful for all who take a sip off my fount in this ocean of information. It's been almost a month since I released Le Chevalier du Cobalt. I thought maybe it would be a good timing for talking a bit about this song in particular, since it's something... quite different to what I usually do.
I'm a believer in the philosophy that says the listener is the one who provides meaning to the music, and when the musician shares their work to the world, it no longer is a matter of one, so I feel in the obligation to let anybody who is reading this that the following is the way how my own song, and if you have provided a different meaning to this work, then your reasoning is just as valid to yourself as mine is to myself.
A "Journey" song is usually just me flowing through a concept and seeing how far a story told without (much) words reach, nothing is really defined from the beginning, but core concepts are repeated throughout the song, that's how the Cyber series usually are, for example. But Le Chevalier du Cobalt had a stablished question since the very beginning: How does an undefeatable warrior overcomes the challenge when the challenger is its own mind?
The song tells the legend of a peasant born in a humble family that one day is struck with disgrace. A nearby army invaded their town and conquered their land, ruthlessly burnt and kill anybody who show resistance to the incoming reign.
A vision approaches to the child on its last breath, the three divine entities: The flesh, the mind, and the commune come to make an offer for the lost soul: Dodge death and thrive as the new defender of life on earth; the defender of the blue marble, hence the name The Knight from Cobalt. Offer that its accepted, as it is seen as an opportunity to redeem itself from the moments it could not protect its loved ones. A new protector is born.
Legends speak of the man who could defeat beasts in one single sweep of its sword, protect entire towns from landslides with its shield, and light the lost with the bright shine of its blue armor in the night with such an ease the warrior would easily be confused with another type of divinity, as opposed to a mirror of divinity on earth.
As perfect protector as it is seen, inside that unpierceable armor there is the mind of a scared child who is regretting being uncapable of saving who once were their only world. So the knight had to find a solution to its nightmares before become one itself.
Soon discovers hears the legend of The Parallel, an apparently invisible evil who makes no move, no sound, it's everywhere but nowhere at once, and corrupts silently and perfectly, an evil spreads that spreads from the core. The legends describe it too vague to be a real enemy, something diffuse, but the knight knew that in order to make itself the knight it was entrusted on, it had to find the unfindable and stop the unstoppable.
After its journey following its tracks, visiting the places the parallel has destroyed, the people it has corrupted, the monsters it has created, and after a vision seen in a dream, the knight finds itself with a black orb, which upon touch decolors its environment and transports our protagonist to an unknown place instantly.
The knight's armor no longer shines, its shield and sword is gone, deep in the confusion the only thing to break the monotone is grasp voice deep in the dark:
"An armor as bright as the arch of heaven, they say?
Yet we both know there's not much brightness found within the mud"
The floor under disappears and the night now finds itself floating in the middle of nowhere. The parallel can manipulate this field at its own convenience.
"Would you have moved a fist at all without this weight on your chest?
What is left after all cerulean is torn apart for your hands?"
The commune lets out a war chant in the background while the knight of cobalt is thrown far away but quickly recovers its position.
The environment crumbles, resembling a massive stronghold falling apart, the knight dodges obstacles, and when it finds itself out of danger a bright crimson flare appears form the dark, just to reveal that said parallel has the same image and look just as our protagonist, much stronger, bigger, and more intimidating than the defender of humanity, all in a pallid and lifeless armor.
'What it is that you put effort to hide"
is exclaimed and the environment suddenly warps into a fractal madness and the battle begins. The knight invokes its sword and counter attacks the massive sudden attack of the parallel.
The fight continues, all the strength from the two is expelled with each colision, the environment is further destroyed with every move. The knight swings its sword with enough strength to tear the arch of heaven in two just for the parallel to swing back with enough strength to split the earth apart.
In one of these exchanges of power, the parallel attacks heavily and the knight can't dodge it, impacts its shield breaking it effortlessly. The knight finds itself in struggle.
The two swords cross to one another, the only thing to be asked now is who will last longer pushing the other. The knight is sliding off the ground, and during the struggle massive wings are expelled from its, surrounding the battlefield. Almost as if a bright shine was happening before the final defeat of our protagonist.
The win of the parallel is foreseen, and after a long hold, the parallel finally decides to hit its ultimate attack, but right before it happens, the knight has another vision, falling deep into the ocean, the armor is broken, its naked, the scars on its hand and body can be seen, but during its fall into the deep ocean, a bright blue flare appears, a ghostly hand emerges and its about to touch the chest of the knight when the vision changes to a sunny day back when it was a child.
The knight and its brother are laying next to a river in the field, the knight is frustated and disappointed because just earlier couldn't prevent part of the herd get eaten by wolves and complains about it
"What does one do after own faith is lost?"
..replied the oldest brother to the concern of the smaller one.
Still busy carving a freshly cut branch of fir, he continued.
"Well... stronger or weaker, we all... in some way or another... try to seek for resolve that stand on threads of silk"
The oldest looked at the vast green and blue surrounding the horizon, so did the youngest, not for too long, as a bright flare from the surrounding water passing by made him get back to work.
"We wait and hope for an external cause to bring our strength back and turn ourselves into our best... but the unfettered has always been there. Ready to walk its first step."
A roughly cut wooden horse was placed in the palms of the little one as he finished his sentence.
"Ready to carry the world on the palm of its hand".
As the horse is placed in the hand, the vision changes to that pale blue hand touching the chest of the knight. Back in the fight, the attack of the parallel hits and a bright white flare is expelled, exposing a bright white armor brighter than a thousand suns. The odds balance once again.
Impacts are exchanged and the two are shoot into the space, rotating to one another as they are leaving earth. The two are just as strong as one another, soon the night realizes that it would never defeat the parallel, but as long as it keeps standing, the balance between chaos and order will persist.
Legend say they are still fighting in the firmament to this day, and whenever a shine as a new star but as brief as the moon covers and uncovers appears in the sky, is where the two have exchanged a hit.
Aaaand that right there, is how i imagined the storyboard for this song, I wish I would have portrayed this into an animation or video of some kind to ease the story, but I just no longer have the time nor the wills for making something of such caliber. Maybe later on the future... waaaay too late on the future.
...also notice how I referred to the knight as "it" and not "he" or "she"? Yeah, I know it's confusing, but that's a detail i'll leave to you, choose whichever you find the more relatable to.
Some more trivia to share: this song was originally produced for a Raytrax compilation but unfortunately got cancelled due to lack of submissions.
I was told many times by a lot of different people that this track sounded massive and I should have released this in a label or something, but there really seems to not be a single place that would be willing to put a risk on a 9 minute long sonorous journey from some random dude from the internet, it just seems to be too much of an specific scene that might as well not exist, and this project is also too personal for me to just give it away to the first label that passes by, I'd rather release it myself and barely reach 2000 plays, I can't even bother at this point.
And I guess that's about it, to be frank I'm not sure what will I do next, or how long will I take to get it done, I'm completely indecisive, burned out if you will, but at least y'all will be entertained with plenty of other songs from others by the moment I have that solved.
