Nora and the Antlers

The play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen tells the story of a woman named Nora who is oppressed; not only by her husband, but by marriage itself. This oppression leads to her obsession, her forbidden love, of things that she is not allowed to do. Throughout the play, Nora does things behind her husband’s back, and it gives her an inexplicable thrill; a thrill that she is incredibly proud of.

Although Nora was in love with an idea more so than a person, I can still see a strong connection between her forbidden love and the love of Peter Silberman of the Antlers. The album Hospice tells an explicit story (in first and second person narrative) of a man meeting a depressed and abusive bone cancer patient in the Sloan Kettering Cancer Ward where he is working, falling in love, and eventually watching her die while he is beside her. Memories, regret and grief recur throughout the album. The way the songs are written to tell a story and the way they are sung, more than anything else, shows just how strong Silberman’s love was. Throughout the album, he writes about how every day he would be harassed by his family and by his coworkers for doing what he knew was incorrect. Both Nora and Silberman are in love with things that society says are wrong, yet both were exceedingly proud of their actions and were able to live life without regret.

This song, titled Epilogue, is the last song on the album. It describes Silberman’s meaningless and empty life after his love Sylvia’s death. Nora would have felt the same way if she had stayed in her marriage; empty and alone, living a life that was not the real Nora.

In a nightmare, I am falling from the ceiling into bed beside you.You’re asleep, I’m screaming, shoving you to try to wake you up. And like before, you’ve got no interest in the life you live when you’re awake. Your dreams still follow story-lines, like fictions you would make.

So I lie down against your back, until we’re both back in the hospital. But now it’s not a cancer ward, we’re sleeping in the morgue. Men and women in blue and white, they are singing all around you, with heavy shovels holding earth. You’re being buried to your neck. In that hospital bed, being buried quite alive now. I’m trying to dig you out but all you want is to be buried there together.

You’re screaming, and cursing, and angry, and hurting me, and then smiling, and crying, apologizing.

I’ve woken up, I’m in our bed, but there’s no breathing body there beside me. Someone must have taken you while I was stuck asleep. But I know better as my eyes adjust. You’ve been gone for quite awhile now, and I don’t work there in the hospital (they had to let me go.)

When I try to move my arms sometimes, they weigh too much to lift. I think you buried me awake (my one and only parting gift.) But you return to me at night, just when I think I may have fallen asleep. Your face is up against mine, and I’m too terrified to speak.

All of the other lyrics for the songs can be found here. I much enjoy them.
http://antlersmusic.com/lyrics/