“caduceus - n. the wand carried by a messenger, represented as a staff with two snakes twined around it and often at times winged.
"Caduceus" was a really tricky track to make as it's kinda disjointed considering that there's a lot of room for this track to breathe and that it's mainly in 11/4.
The unusual time signature was because at the time only "Paris" and "Anathematized" were done and I realized I hadn't really done a lot of playing with time signatures. I'd only messed with 4/4 and 6/4 so I decided to throw in an unusual time signature.
It worked out though, mainly everything just kinda plays in three groups of 3/4 with an extra 2/4 at the end so it all works out.
In Greek mythology, the caduceus is the symbol of the god Hermes (Mercury in Roman mythology), which is the messenger of the gods and the protection of wit, trade, travelers, and so on. But most importantly for this song, thieves.
In fact this song is what inspired the album cover, which is a take on the Caduceus using the Cooper cane, two twining raccoon tails and Clockwerk's wings. It's one of my favorite things i have made and I am quite proud of it. I knew when I made it that it would have to be the album cover.
Symbolically the song is about now that the whole ordeal is over, now what? What is for Sly now that he's been taken from his life and thrown into an orphanage? The songs gentleness at first was to kinda make it have a lullaby feel, the whole song has a dreamy feel to it especially with how the Rhodes piano and grand piano together just sort of blur away at the end.
There are vocal samples in this song, notably from "The Police File" cutscene in both the English AND French version of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. They are both played over each other and heavy edited as you can tell.
(which is a good thing to mention that this is just sampling, I am not claiming credit for those vocal samples at all)
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lyrics
Storm quells its wrath,
Quavered an array of light,
but it’s aeons away,
And just beyond my sight,
Is it an Elysian chime?
Or a Tartarus toll,
It bereaves me of peace,
And reminds me of what they stole,
You can’t encode your pain,
O grifter that grieves,
Algorithmically cope,
Will you notice when it leaves?
Now it’s fisticuffs,
Your medium for speech,
But there’s miles to fight,
And just beyond your reach,
Now, what is this home, it’s not for us three,
now, like a squall darkness will follow me,
And now, like an angry Hermes, I’m a robber at the gates,
And now, I can’t carry these weights,
Qui est le plus fort et brutal?
Qui est le plus intelligent?
Qui est le plus sournois et triste?
Sommes nous le plus redoutable?
Et puisque je suis tombé loin,
Halo d’ancêtres au dessus,
Le paysage lourd, l’océan de nuit,
Ils traînent moi travers les épines,
Now, what is this home, it’s not for us three,
now, like a squall darkness will follow me,
And now, my caduceus shall be my oar through the straits,
And now, like an angry Hermes, I’m a robber at the gates,
Hello all. This is a music project of making a rock opera
off of the video game series Sly Cooper. What started off as a fun joke side project is now becoming something worthy of showing. An EP will soon be coming out to showcase what is to come....more