Gira lived with his parents in a relatively affluent suburb of Los Angeles, California, though they divorced when he was a young teenager. After staying with his alcoholic mother for much of his youth, he was sent to live with his father in Indiana and then Paris. He ran away from home and hitch-hiked across Europe, and was finally arrested for selling drugs in Israel. Although he was only a teenager at the time, he was placed in an adult prison. His father found Gira with the aid of Interpol and sent him back to the United States. Back in Los Angeles, he played in a band called Little Cripples and enrolled in art school and imagined that he would someday be a visual artist (Gira sketched obsessively); however, he soon became disillusioned with the elitism and academia surrounding the art world and dropped out. He was also in a band called Curtain, later called Strict Ids (source: Brendan Mullen's book "Live at the Masque"). However, Gira's interest in art is known to have affected his music; Inner Female is a study of Francis Bacon. It could also be said that Gira's visceral, surreal writing style is comparative to Bacon's paintings.
In 1979 Gira moved to New York City in order to start a band; he was influenced by No Wave and noise artists like Suicide and Glenn Branca. He played with the band Circus Mort before forming Swans. Before achieving success with his music, Gira was forced to work many tedious, backbreaking jobs in construction and demolition. He also began a short-lived art magazine, No.
Initially, Swans' focus was raw rhythm and abrasive textures, usually eschewing melody for visceral power. They became known for their abrasive experimental and post-industrial sound. The band's lineup and sound evolved over time, most markedly with the inclusion of Gira's eventual girlfriend, Jarboe, who added her ethereal voice and synthesizers to the group in 1985. Gira and Swans spent the next twelve years releasing studio, live, and side-project albums. Gira's frustration with the various record labels they recorded for grew over time.
After dissolving Swans in 1997 Gira released a solo album under his own name and began a new musical direction with The Angels of Light, which are a quieter, more acoustic-based group than Swans. Nonetheless, The Angels of Light retain much of the intensity of Gira's former project. While The Angels of Light are a rather traditional "song-based" group, Gira also spent time experimenting with soundscapes, found sound, and loops with the The Body Lovers project. He has also released several albums under his own name including Drainland (1995), The Somniloquist (2000, a spoken word album), and What We Did (2001), a collaboration with Windsor For the Derby's frontman Dan Matz.
Gira founded his own record label, Young God Records, which has released albums from such artists as Devendra Banhart, Mi and L'au, and Akron/Family as well as the Swans, The Angels of Light and The Body Lovers back catalogues.
Akron/Family served as Gira's backing band during the recording of and touring for The Angels of Light's 2005 album, The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'.
Where Does Your Body Begin?
Michael Gira Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Your eyes were melting from inside your skull
The wind was burning holes into my skin
Where does a body end?
Your voice is drifting through the stratosphere
My mouth is drinking from your pool of tears
I saw your heartbeat in the radium screen
What does a body mean?
In the ruins of a city under the forest floor
Your naked body's buried in a vacant field
What does your body feel now?
The air is black and has no oxygen
The bodies in the river float beneath the sun
Transparent skin it shines a light from deep within
Where does your body begin?
The stars are hidden by a mirrored sky
And darkness disappears behind reflected light
Perception is a distance in a closed-in space
How will your body escape?
The crowd is feeling you inside your head
Your imagination's canceled by the opposite
And every possibility's been proved untrue
Now is your body you?
In Michael Gira's song "Where Does Your Body Begin?", he presents a depiction of a surreal and dystopian landscape, which he uses as a metaphor for exploring the question of where the self (or the body) begins and ends. The opening lines describe a surreal scene where the singer sees someone kneeling on a desert plateau, with their eyes "melting from inside [their] skull". This is followed by a series of similarly surreal images, such as wind burning holes into skin and a voice drifting through the stratosphere. The refrain "Where does a body end?" is repeated after each of these images, emphasizing the central theme of the song.
As the song progresses, the imagery becomes increasingly apocalyptic, with references to ruins and a naked body buried in a vacant field. The final verse presents a more existential question, asking whether our bodies and identities are determined by our perceptions and the beliefs of others: "The crowd is feeling you inside your head / Your imagination's canceled by the opposite / And every possibility's been proved untrue / Now is your body you?" The song ultimately leaves the question of where the body begins and ends unanswered, suggesting that it is a complex and multi-layered issue that cannot be easily resolved.
Line by Line Meaning
I saw you kneeling on a desert plateau
I saw you in a barren and deserted place, showing signs of submission.
Your eyes were melting from inside your skull
Your eyes seemed to be dissolving from the insides of your skull, expressing intense emotions.
The wind was burning holes into my skin
The wind was so strong that it felt like it was causing physical harm, creating a sensation of pain in the skin.
Where does a body end?
What is the true extent and nature of the human body?
Your voice is drifting through the stratosphere
Your voice seems to be traveling through the uppermost layer of the earth's atmosphere.
My mouth is drinking from your pool of tears
I am metaphorically consuming the tears you shed, feeling the depth of your emotional state.
I saw your heartbeat in the radium screen
I could see your heart beating through the screen that displays radiation.
What does a body mean?
What is the significance or essence of a human body?
The future's leaking through a shut lead door
Ideas and possibilities about the future are seeping through a closed door made of heavy metal.
In the ruins of a city under the forest floor
In the remains of a destroyed urban area hidden under the ground surrounded by trees.
Your naked body's buried in a vacant field
Your body devoid of any clothing lies buried in an empty expanse of land.
What does your body feel now?
What is the state of your body and its sensations at this moment in time?
The air is black and has no oxygen
The atmosphere is absent of oxygen and appears dark, indicating a state of danger and uncertainty.
The bodies in the river float beneath the sun
The corpses in the river are visible and exposed to sunlight, representing a stark reality of death.
Transparent skin it shines a light from deep within
Skin, which is transparent, offers a glimpse into the inner world that resides within the self, radiating light.
Where does your body begin?
What is the fundamental origin and nature of the human body?
The stars are hidden by a mirrored sky
The sky is so reflective and mirrored that the stars are not visible, creating a surreal effect.
And darkness disappears behind reflected light
The absence of light is overtaken by the reflected light, leading to an absence of darkness.
Perception is a distance in a closed-in space
The perception is a measure of distance within a confined and restricted space, leading to a skewed sense of reality.
How will your body escape?
How can you break free from the shackles that are binding your physical existence?
The crowd is feeling you inside your head
The surrounding people are sensing you by merging with your thoughts and emotions, entering into your psyche.
Your imagination's canceled by the opposite
Your creativity and imagination are nullified by the opposing forces acting against it.
And every possibility's been proved untrue
Any possibility that existed has been shown to be false or incorrect.
Now is your body you?
Are you defined solely by your physical form, or is there more to you than meets the eye?
Contributed by Alice Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@naturphilosophie1
Beautiful.
@andresaguero5880
This crushed me
@snvdr
I love where does the body end 😊
@frankalbin8547
Important.
@peepnox7747
Amazing
@aschemusicreations
I have to say, I prefer this to the version on Great Annihilator. This feels more true.
@osmiridium
This to me is what a hangover feels like
@OshgalEast
T never stops why does T never ever stop it doesn’t ask for T it doesn’t says this isn’t it just asks what can you eat from within you