Hum - Shapeshifter

In the twilight of modern rock’s fleeting golden age, the song “Shapeshifter” by Hum, from their 2020 album *Inlet*, emerges as a haunting meditation on the impermanence of self and the inexorable pull of transformation. With its sprawling eight-minute arc, the track weaves a sonic tapestry that is both ethereal and weighty, a testament to the band’s mastery of heavy alternative’s emotive depths. The lyrics, sparse yet vivid, conjure images of desolate landscapes—skies and sand, a remembered face, words spilled upon a barren earth—evoking a soul adrift, tethered to memory yet unraveling under the gravity of existential decay. The refrain, with its mournful “Blue over you” and “lose all to you,” speaks to a surrender, not merely to another but to the shifting tides of identity itself, where time expands and the self dissolves into the ether.

Musically, “Shapeshifter” is a slow-burning elegy, its deliberate tempo and layered guitars crafting a sense of cosmic drift, as if the listener is caught in the orbit of a dying star. The drums, laid back to the point of near-spectral presence, underscore the song’s contemplative melancholy, while the soaring riffs at its climax lift the spirit only to let it fall, a fleeting transcendence before the inevitable descent. This is no mere song but a journey—an odyssey through the heart’s quiet ruins, where the search for solace collides with the truth that all things, even the self, must shapeshift or perish. In its mournful beauty, it stands as a poignant reminder of our fragile, ever-changing nature, a work of art that lingers long after its final notes fade into silence.

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I remember the skies and the sand
I remember your face and your lovely hand
Words poured out on a dusty land
And gravity comes to us all
I feel the engines stall
Feel us start to fall

[Chorus 1]
Blue over you
And lose all to you
The time expanding
And lose all ascent

[Verse 2]
A signal that no one hears
The surface blurs and the ocean nears
Sadness bursting disappears
Waves that lift us and toss
Promise made of enduring loss
You speak only of minnows and moss

[Chorus 2]
Blue over me
And lose all to me
The time expanding
And lose all ascent
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[Bridge]
While you let the water in
I sleep and feel you near again
While you let the water in
I dreamt again that I couldn't swim

[Verse 3]
Finding myself past the half-life of me
Lost in the weeds, tugging at sleeves
A dreadful despair of a color that pales to describe
So taking the form of a winged butterfly
And lifting myself through a sliver of white
A lazy path to the fence row and the flowers within

[Verse 4]
Needing some speed, I became then a fawn
Feeling the dangers of the quickening dawn
I leapt over the fence and raced across the softening ground
And after some time I discovered a pool
Water was clear where the lilies were blue
I drank until full and waited to no ill effect

[Verse 5]
Seeing the sky I became then a bird
A swallow that sped through the warm thinning air
To heights unimagined, 'til loneliness took back its hold
[Verse 6]
Where is the place for what's all left of me?
Where do we keep the things we don't need?
Where is the solace promised me in voices before?

Suddenly me just here back on the land
Reaching for you and finding your hand