THE SONG SKYFALL

Since I’m on the film Skyfall tonight I thought I might make one more related post. As I said previously I thought Skyfall was the best James Bond film I’ve ever seen. And one of the more realistic as far as the analytical and detective work went. I even immensely enjoyed the theme music, the lyrics of which I later analyzed line by line.

I thought the song was fine for an “entertainment film theme” and even vaguely appropriate for the most part regarding the characterization, but the lyrics of the theme song had nothing whatsoever to do with real intelligence work nor did they have anything much to do at all with the plot of the film.

So about three months after the film came out on DVD I rented the film, made a line by line examination of the lyrics, thought about the film, and real intelligence work, and decided to largely rewrite the lyrics with those things in mind. The result is the set of lyrics you’ll see below which to me far more accurately reflect both the plot of the film and actual intelligence work, as opposed to just being a catchy film theme song.

I set these lyrics to run at the same tempo and to the same theme music (the musical composition itself – which I thought was well done) and to run for the same length of time as the introductory title theme song near the beginning of the film. But the lyrics are different of course.

_____________________________________________________

SKYFALL

So…

Where do we begin
Now that we know we’ve found the end?
I’ve seen them all and once again
I’ve lost the limits of my sins

For I know I cannot mend
Nor can I anymore pretend
You cannot take, I cannot lend
Does this truly make us friends?

When the sky falls
Come the thunder
When the night calls
You cannot get away

When the sky falls
Going under
When the truth palls
There is no coming day

Skyfall has come to us
I cannot say if this is just
I’ve wondered long who I might trust
This seems as if it must…

Just be the way it is

The dark is deep and long in me
You know this, even you can see
I cannot ask, you have no plea
This is the way it all must be…

When others come to look

You cannot know the rest
Just trust me
That is for the best

If you know my name
I cannot say
Wherever it will lead…

When the sky falls
It’s frightening
When your flesh crawls
I will not speak a lie

When the sky falls
Like lightening
When your voice calls
Come find me as you die

When the Sky Falls
When the Spooks crawl
When the night calls
Where will you go that day?

When the Sky Falls
When the Sky Falls
When the Sky Falls
When the Sky Falls

When does the SkyFall?

Neither one of us can say

Oh no we won’t…

 

THE SINS OF SKYFALL

If you ask me Skyfall is the best James Bond film I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen them all, even the painful Roger Moore films. When I first saw Skyfall and saw the message mentioned in the author’s article that was my immediate conclusion as well. Though I did not consider the message an anagram, but rather a message conveying a personal code that M would instantly understand.

What gave me the most vital clue about the M-Silva relationship was how Silva kept calling her, “Mommy,” and how often M remarked upon the relationship with her agents in a far more than merely professional sense.

What I think the author did in his article however was a superb job of both detective work and of cryptoanalysis (of the clue and plot point) and I agree with his conclusions. Though of course it’s not really cryptoanalysis, even with the missing key, it is more a personal coding (M should understand the personal code immediately because their shared experience is the key – it would be an unknown code to others but a private shared code to her) or as the author states, an anagram encoding. If the editors intentionally downplayed the clue then in my opinion they did so because they didn’t want to diretcly explain or talk down to the audience about the possible implications. I think the film-makers were more than happy to let the audience draw their own conclusions, and rightfully so.

(I had drawn the same conclusion as the author of this piece, though for different reasons – and I think the Daniel Craig Bond is far more sophisticated and tries to be far more like a real field agent than the previous and mostly cartoon incarnations of the Bond intelligence agent – though he is still far too much a “superhero” than a real man or an actual agent. Though the Timothy Dalton Bond was usually a very good Bond as well.)

Anyway, kudos to Mr. Carter. A sharp piece of detective work and plot clue analysis. I recommend his article.

“The key anagram is the cryptic message Silva sends to M shortly before all mayhem breaks loose: “THINK ON YOUR SINS.” The language is so highly stylized that I was certain, from the time the words appeared on the screen of M’s laptop, that there was a message hidden within. In the car on the way home after the film ended, I was already scribbling anagrams on a piece of paper. But I couldn’t solve it, even with the help of the Internet Anagram Server, until I remembered three bizarre aspects of the movie. (Here are the spoilers.) ”

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-11-11/the-secret-james-bond-missed-in-skyfall-