| "False Kings" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by Poets of the Fall | ||||
| from the album Ultraviolet | ||||
| Released | January 31, 2018 | |||
| Length | 3:31 | |||
| Label | Insomniac | |||
| BPM | 184 | |||
| Key | B | |||
| Producer(s) | Poets of the Fall | |||
| Poets of the Fall singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
False Kings was released as a single on 31st January 2018 alongside a music video directed by Miika Hakala.
It was later included as the third track on Poets of the Fall's 2018 eighth full album Ultraviolet.
In 2020, the track was performed live and unplugged by Marko, Olli, Jaska and Jani as the June entry of the Alexander Theatre Sessions.
Single track listing
All tracks are written by Poets of the Fall
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "False Kings" | 3:31 |
Lyrics
Getting lost singing their song, oh
Caught up in all I've done, oh
It's all I know, but not what I need, oh
Cut by my love, cut till I bleed
So I want to run to your shelter tonight
Run to the shelter tonight
United in silent resistance
Of bowing to false kings
So let me run to your shelter tonight
Run from this meaningless pantomime
I'll swallow my pride, give up the pretence
Of bowing to false kings
Bought their smiles, liquid and smooth
Took their words for the truth, hey
Edge of light and shade, ah
My broken soul once more enslaved
So I want to run to your shelter tonight...
... I see the false kings
I see that all this
Must end
When there' s no love in my embrace
Cold blood runs through my veins
If I soar without grace
Do I still soar
I need the love in your embrace
Open doors, brand new ways
End my wars and erase
And I'm yours
So I want to run to your shelter tonight..
... I'll swallow my pride, give up the pretence
Yes, I wined and, and I dined on, on that cyanide
Merchandise
-
False Kings T-Shirt
Interviews
darkside.ru
For one thing, it speaks of how we - as people - seek validation and fulfilment outside ourselves. We are constantly looking for love or acceptance, or a sense of belonging, or a sense of having lived. We seek it through myriad different distractions that may or may not be the band-aid of the day for us. Yet if you stop to review what that approach actually brings us, you can see it is not a lasting satisfaction, but rather a need to look for more and more fixes endlessly, until we start “getting lost singing their song”. But also it tells us that there is a way out.
With the video, we wanted the wicked Dorian-Gray-like alter ego to represent this dilemma, this urge. Perhaps, [the references] are there to commemorate the past fifteen years and to allow us to move on to new expanses. But I don’t really want to go into too much detail about any of it, or the lyrics even, because, as ever, I find it most interesting to allow each and everyone to have as much liberty as possible to decide for themselves what the meanings are.[1]
Band References
The music video contains several warped versions of iconic props and vignettes from the band's history:
- Signs of Life - The lady in red does the Morpho hand gesture from Lift, but out-of-context.
- Carnival of Rust - There is a shot of a red and white Lollipop, but it doesn't form a spiral like the one from Carnival of Rust.
- Revolution Roulette - The casino game is poker instead of roulette, which may be a call-back to PotF's cover of You Know My Name from the same era - "And if you think you've won, you never saw me change the game that we've all been playing".
- Twilight Theater / Temple of Thought - The jester's face from the cover of Twilight Theater has been cut out and added to a Temple of Thought card, covering the angelic Marko's head.
- Jealous Gods - The raucous party from Daze makes a return, but now nobody is wearing their masks and the subject of excitement appears to have changed from debauchery to money.
- Clearview - The Fischer v Byrne "Game of the Century" Chess setup from the Clearview lyrics booklet and t-shirt is the starting position when Marko sits down, but he has been put in the shoes of Byrne just prior to Fischer's knight sacrifice.
Trivia
- Marko's chess opponent is actually a cameo appearance from the MV's director Miika Hakala.
- The time between Ultraviolet's first single False Kings and last single My Dark Disquiet was an astonishing twenty months.