DEAD AHEAD | Dredge Song!

All new Stupendi-Merch NOW AVAILABLE! stupendiumstore.com/ LYRICS: VERSE 1: Cast off from the docks onto boundless seas There’s shops to be stocked, there are mouths to feed Every town needs Neptune’s bounties But bringing them aground? Well, it’s down to me For the flounders, bream, crabs, cod and mackerel Can’t out compete man, rod and tackle And the salmon and the wrasse, barracuda and the bass Are all grouped up with the groupers – and a profit haggled What’s it worth to get your earnings from a sturgeon on a pole? There’s a lot of soul searching when you’re searching for a sole No man is an island but I’m fine to play the role Living life on the horizon, it can really take atoll What you want to risk to get a fishy there upon a little dishy when the boat comes in? It’s a mystery but I’m pretty sure a biggun’ up and hit me Took a nibble and he broke something I’ll take tea with a spot of hake, peas Some chips, baked beans and a blob of H.P. Love, craft and skill let you dominate seas Tough graft won’t kill – but a gob of great teeth Might take you by surprise as you’re scraping up the muck No saying what you’ll find so it pays to have a look Hauling trinkets all a-glimmer or just fishing up some dinner Sure I ain’t much of a singer but I’m great with catchy hooks CHORUS: Neath tides of bleak and briny In that bed where fortunes sleep Secrets lie beneath for finding Weaving dread and silt for sheets In the lambent lamp of phantoms Flotsam all are we in time Can you fathom what the fathom’s Blackened chasms have to hide deep in the brine VERSE 2: It takes the correct person to live off the brine But I’m great at networking and my job’s online Sure you’ll maybe get herding up the lobsters fine But your fate is less certain with an ominous shrine No that can’t be what I’m seeing, chance it’s just something I’ve eaten A mirage or, perhaps my bleeding looking glass just needs a cleaning Heck, the hardiest of seamen can lose faculties of an evening It’s a fact of life at sea! But I’m still grappling with the feeling That there’s something coming after me, there’s whispers in the tides That crystalise in ocean foam of shifting, infinite eyes Their ebbs and flows obsidian in twisted pitch of night Or are the depths below, abyssal, mirrored in the skies? Blow it, I’m a man of reason! Won’t get caught in superstition Bloke who can’t keep track of real isn’t a lot of use for fishing But these catches that I’ve reeled in are so rotten, putrid, writhen Sallow shadows from the shallows risen withered and unbidden From depths, immortal chest, enshrined abreast horizon’s sprawl Who’s Every crest, a breath I ride in endless rise and fall A beating heart, relentless, scribed as tendrils strike the hull And each a part, crescendant, chimes the yen of siren’s call Each swell imparts unspoken names as waves and senses break As rudder carves an open vein left gaping in our wake Though tokens raised from soaken graves may yet a fortune make I fear for what the ocean claims in place of what we take BRIDGE: What’s to find Harrowed craft ‘Cross the lines Shadows cast? Hoist your nets Raise your pots All is death Plague and rot Hard to port Hard astern Matters nought Where you turn Compass spins Stars have fled We are all Dead ahead CHORUS: Neath tides of bleak and briny In that bed where fortunes sleep Secrets lie beneath for finding Weaving dread and silt for sheets In the lambent lamp of phantoms Flotsam all are we in time Can you fathom what the fathom’s Blackened chasms have to hide deep in your mind

I know it's unlikely anyone'll see this, but I've gotta point out how much I love that the final monster is the night angler. They're exclusive to the marrows, the earliest and safest part of the game, which means the fisherman was close, so close to safety, to getting out of this alive, heck, he probably mistook the light for the lighthouse.

Absolutely love how this goes from a fisherman making jokes about his job to horrors beyond our comprehension real fast.

I love how the trinkets dredged up get more worthless as the song progresses, it’s as if as the bar of gold was bait and the fisherman is being pulled along to keep searching until the treasure dries up and it becomes clear that he was was on a line all along.

I absolutely love how the narrator’s language becomes more florid the farther he sinks into eldritch horror, right up until the second verse where he tries to snap himself out of it and briefly reverts back to simple fisher’s slang for a few bars before fully losing himself. Masterfully written lyrics.

"A blob of Hp, love, craft, and skill." I sea what you did there. I love that line. Fantastic song as always.

"But I'm great at networking and my job's online" This is why I love Stupes' songs, the wordplays are just... Perfection

The gradual transition from the corniest fish puns I've ever heard to the equivalent of "The Muppets Descend into Lovecraftian Madness" was astounding. Might be one of Stup's best ones yet!

"Sure, I ain't much of a singer," they sing as they drop the hardest shanty of our generation

Dredge might've not won the indie game award, but this song sure deserves one.

The entire song feels like a calm before the storm, and that's exactly what it is. A fisherman facing Lovecraftian horrors.

The 'The Stupendium dresses up as working class men' cinematic universe is coming along finely

From “My lines are missing catchy hooks” to “But I’m great with catchy hooks”. What a journey this has been.

The oceanic vibes at such an hour of madness. Then just a pirate singing into my ear, what an odd day to be a Stupendium Fan.

I'm so enamored with your wordplay and melodies. I'm speechless. also your chorus of..."fish"...was kind of terrifying but oddly charming? phenomenal work, 2570/10, would get eaten by lovecraftian horrors of the deep again

I know your singing is the main selling point but I have to give props to your acting, especially at the end! The way the captain reacts to the giant angler fish gives me chills every time.

This song does an amazing job of portraying a slow descent into madness, and I think a lot of that has to do with the lyrics. In the first part, they're very welcoming, innocent and colloquial, with contractions like "big'un" and "ain't", and informal, stereotypically lower-class words ("Gob", "nibble", "dishy"), as well as a tidal wave of fish puns. But when we get to the eldritch portions of the song, the fish puns dry up and the lyrics get more prose-like and verbose, like the kind of thing you'd read in an actual Lovecraft story - "their ebbs and flows obsidian", "sallow shadows from the shallows", "each swell imparts unspoken names", etc. And in the middle of the second half, when the fisherman briefly tries to snap themselves back to reality, there's a return to the more colloquial lyrics of the first half, with "blow it" and "bloke", as well as the last fish pun (real/reel) of the song. It gives the impression that in learning Things That Man Was Not Meant To Know, the fisherman's vocabulary was irreversibly altered along with his mind. Wonderful stuff!

Stupes fans are eating well this month! Another superbly written journey into another game I know nothing about.

The 'Love, craft and skill' line is so subtly incredible and I love it.

I like how it starts off feeling so cheery and goofy and it turns into eldritch horror, going from a guy goofing about on a boat with a few odd things going on to a sudden rapid descent into madness