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 ↴
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?
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 it's opposite
And every possibility's been proved untrue
Now is your body you?
The lyrics of Michael Gira's song Where Does Your Body Begin are enigmatic and thought-provoking, inviting the listener to reflect on the uncertainty of identity and perception in an apocalyptic world. The opening lines suggest a dystopian scenario, where the future is uncertain and leaking through a shut door, as if the world is in a state of collapse. The ruins of a city hidden under the forest floor evoke a sense of devastation and abandonment, while the naked body buried in a vacant field raises questions about the nature of embodiment and mortality. The refrain "what does your body feel now?" echoes as a haunting reminder of the fragility and impermanence of the human form in a desolate landscape.
The second verse adds to the sense of disorientation and alienation, as the air is black and lacks oxygen, and the bodies in the river float under the sun, their transparent skin symbolizing a luminous but ghostly presence. The line "where does your body begin?" is repeated, suggesting a blurring of boundaries between the self and the environment, between life and death, between reality and imagination. The following lines evoke a surreal scene of a mirrored sky hiding the stars and perception being distorted in a closed-in space, raising the question of how one can escape the limits of their body and mind.
The last lines of the song are cryptic but suggestive, as the crowd is feeling the listener inside their head, canceling their imagination and proving every possibility untrue. The final question "now is your body you?" implies a profound doubt about the coherence and authenticity of identity, as if the body and the self are no longer aligned, or as if the self is losing itself in a world without certainties.
Line by Line Meaning
The future's leaking through a shut lead door
Uncertain events are seeping through a closed barrier with no hope for visibility or control.
In the ruins of a city under the forest floor.
A destroyed metropolis rests hidden beneath untamed growth.
Your naked body's buried in a vacant field
Your exposed self is interred in an empty, abandoned tract of land.
What does your body feel now?
How do your physical senses respond in the present state?
The air is black and has no oxygen
The atmosphere is devoid of life-giving breath and shrouded in darkness.
The bodies in the river float beneath the sun
Human corpses drift along a waterway's surface beneath the daytime sky.
Transparent skin it shines a light from deep within
Illumination radiates from a translucent epidermis within.
Where does your body begin?
What is the origin point of your physical presence?
The stars are hidden by a mirrored sky
Celestial entities are obscured by a reflective firmament.
And darkness disappears behind reflected light
Unseen obscurity vanishes under the glare of mirrored illumination.
Perception is a distance in a closed-in space
Cognition forms from distance between oneself and enclosed surroundings.
How will your body escape?
What is the path for your physical being to gain freedom?
The crowd is feeling you inside your head.
The multitude senses your essence within your mind.
Your imagination's canceled by it's opposite
Your creativity is nullified by its antithesis.
And every possibility's been proved untrue
All feasible options have been discredited as false.
Now is your body you?
Currently, is your physical form synonymous with your true self?
Contributed by Henry B. 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