Above This Broken World

"Above This Broken World"
Single by The Rentals
Album	Q36
Released	February 11, 2020
Recorded	Alphaville Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Battle Born Studios, Las Vegas, NV
Length	5:11
Writer(s)	Matt Sharp
Producer(s)	The Rentals
Status	Officially released
The Rentals singles chronology
"Great Big Blue" (2020) "Above This Broken World" (2020) "Teen Beat Cosmonaut" (2020)
Q36 track listing
"Teen Beat Cosmonaut" (4) "Above This Broken World" (5) "Forgotten Astronaut" (6)

"Above This Broken World" is a song by the Rentals. It is the fifth track and eighth single from the band's fourth album, Q36, and was released on February 11, 2020.

Overview

Press release

[Source]

The creative visual team of director/editor J. Santos (Netflix: Chef’s Table) and web developer Michael Greenwald collaborated on a combination of surrealist digital animation and unique lyric titles, where metadata that usually hides in the background of all computer programming, that drift in and out of the foreground, moving like a dream, in a ghostlike manner weaving around animated microscopic cells of a strange alien life-form for The Rentals’ gorgeously elegant lyric-video ABOVE THIS BROKEN WORLD.

Living out, somewhere, in the mid-western farmland of Nebraska, a man, in the midst of a dream, envisions his wife, on a stormy, gusty night, being taken away on a massive alien spacecraft. To no fault of her own, the woman had encountered multiple horrors, in her family, throughout her early years on earth and this “mothership” has come to take her, far away, to a benevolent heavenly body that exists without the unjustifiable violence and cruelty she had faced during her difficult terrestrial experience.

The husband wakes, in the middle of the night, only to realize that his wife …is actually …gone. The dream was not a dream, in fact, the dream has become his new reality. He walks out on to his porch, then into the vast cornfield of their family farm and in total astonishment, stands at the edge of acre after acre of crushed, freshly charred crops. Looking to the sky, he is overwhelmed with gratitude, for the freedom finally given to the one woman he ever loved. He had always known that true freedom is one thing he could never provide.

Bowing his head in a silent goodbye, the man closes his eyes and calmly tries to telekinetically reassure his, long gone, spouse during what must be a truly unbelievable, intergalactic journey. His whispers in his mind, “we are the sum of our all of our experiences, we always have been and always will be.” He thinks of a line from a silly 80’s movie …“no matter where you go, there you are.” After exhaling a quick breath through his nose and slowly shaking his head, the man opens his eyes, turns around and begins the short walk back to his empty farmhouse, then he says to himself “you are who you are, now.”

The images in this Official Lyric-Video don’t actually show a single literal representation or interpretation to any of this imaginative, solemn tale, yet somehow they abstractly express all of it and maybe, even a little more. In this visual and musical collaboration, J. Santos, Michael Greenwald and The Rentals have aimed for something that they hope will make a subtle, but meaningful connection with those that have loved someone that have struggled with their troubled past.

Sometimes, the marriage of moving images and melodies and words can tell a story that lies somewhere deep below the surface, in the soil and the heart of this broken world.

#Q36

Merchandise

The limited-run clothing item for "Above This Broken World" was a t-shirt designed by Ivan Minsloff, available in both girly and unisex sizes, with purple and yellow variants of each.

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Personnel

• Matt Sharp - vocals
• Nick Zinner - guitar
• Ronnie Vannucci - drums
• The Gentle Assassins Choir - vocals
• Dave Fridmann - mixing
• Matt Estep - mixing
• Ryan Smith - mastering

Lyric video

The lyric music video was created by J. Santos and Michael Greenwald and released on March 3, 2020.

Lyrics

Lift up the blinds; look out (the window)
I don’t believe my eyes (No, I don’t)
There’s a hole in the sky the size (of Ohio) Ohio

All the stars have aligned (placed just so)
The Mothership could arrive (through a black hole)
It came from the other side (of the cosmos) the …cos …mos

Yes, I
I have this dream sometimes
The Mothership takes my damaged girl to another world
I watch her fly into the ocean of lights
The sky is filled with a million pearls
Above this broken world

I woke up surprised to find (I was alone)
Ran into a furious night (full of ghosts)
In the tempestuous sky (a cyclone) a cyclone

Yeah, there’s a hole in the sky the size (of Chicago)
You've left all that you've loved behind (and went solo)
Wherever you’ve gone, you will find (there you are, Love)
Yeah, there you are

Yes, I
I have this dream sometimes
The Mothership takes my damaged girl to another world
I watch her fly into the ocean of lights
The sky is filled with a million pearls
Above this broken world

Try as you may, there are things you can’t escape
No, you can’t un-see those self-destructive tragedies
And you may be bound, tethered to the ropes you’ve found
You can go far away, but some things you can’t escape

(You are who you are, now)
(You are who you are)
(You are who you are, now)
(You are who you are)
You are who you are, now

Yes, I
I have this dream sometimes
The Mothership takes my damaged girl to another world
I watch her fly (I watch her fly) into the ocean of lights
The sky is filled with a million pearls
Above this broken world

(Broken world, damaged girls, a million pearls in space)
(Broken world), I have this dream sometime (damaged girls)
Where I watch her fly (A million pearls in space)
I have this dream sometimes

See also

• The Rentals
• List of Matt Sharp songs