1) A mononym of Aurelio V… Read Full Bio ↴Voltaire is a name of at least three acts:
1) A mononym of Aurelio Voltaire Hernández (b. 1967, Havana, Cuba), a singer/songwriter whose music has its roots deeply embedded in European folk and also has influences from the gothic scene. He has also been directing commercials and animating short films for ten years, the best known of these are his Hieronymus Bosch-inspired station MTV IDs.
Inspired by the films of Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad), Voltaire began animating at the age of ten on a super8 camera. By piecing together snippets of information from fanzines, he eventually was able to teach himself how to make foam rubber animation models and animate them. The films of his childhood landed him his first directing job in 1988 with MTV. The stop-motion tour of the hellish Garden of Earthly Delights won several awards.
He also teaches stop-motion animation at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
He also wrote the song "BRAINS!" for the Cartoon Network show "Grim and Evil" which has since split into two separate shows (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Evil Con Carne) and the song can also be found on his album "Boo Hoo".
An avid fan of Star Trek, Voltaire frequently attends conventions and released a four track E.P. called "Banned on Vulcan". It was a set of comedy recordings poking fun at characters from the show.
He often takes part in Adventure Quest Worlds special musical events in which he is drawn incredibly well!
Discography:
The Devil's Bris (1998)
Almost Human (2000)
Boo Hoo (2002)
Then and Again (2004)
Ooky Spooky (2007)
To the Bottom of the Sea (2008)
Hate Lives in a Small Town (2010)
Riding a Black Unicorn Down the Side of an Erupting Volcano While Drinking from a Chalice Filled with the Laughter of Small Children (2011)
BiTrektual (2012)
Raised by Bats (2014)
Heart-Shaped Wound (2017)
What Are the Oddz? (2019)
The Black Labyrinth (TBD)
2) A German indie rock group from Bonn, too. They were founded in 2003 by Roland Meyer de Voltaire, who is the singer, songwriter and producer of the band. Their discography includes one EP and two albums, called "Heute ist jeder Tag" (2006) and "Das letzte bisschen Etikette" (2009).
Sites: Voltaire-Musik.De (official)
3) A Polish punk rock band who have released two albums.
4) An 18th-century French writer and philosopher, who might be scrobbled by people listening to audiobooks of his works.
Sacrifice
Voltaire Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I go soaring right back to that place
Red Lips, Basement, Bedroom
Insense, and your perfume
Was the final time I saw your face...
Monday at school
"Oh my god! Did you hear who just died?"
I covered up my hears and I couldn't bear to hear them laugh
Hold on...
Hold on...
And on and on
There's a place where you and I looked in eachother's eyes
And promised we'd be free someday
So please tell me why you sacrificed all that you would be
We hadn't much to weigh...
A photograph
Is the only piece of you I have
In that Hula Skirt you
Smiled Yet none of us knew
How much pain there was behind your smile
Hold on...
Hold on...
And on and on
There's a place where you and I looked in eachother's eyes
And promised we'd be free someday
So please tell me why you sacrificed all that you would be
You threw away your dreams
Only heaven knows why you sacrificed all that you would be
You threw away our dreams
So much life to live
So much love to give
So much life to live
So much love to give
So much life to live
So much love to give
The lyrics to Voltaire's song Sacrifice tell a powerful story about a lost love and the tragedy of a life cut short. The song begins with the singer describing how they are transported back to a time and place with just the mention of their lost love's name. The setting is a basement bedroom where they were once together, surrounded by the scent of incense and perfume. The memory is bittersweet as it was the last time they ever saw the person they loved. The singer then describes hearing about their love's death from a gunshot wound, and the difficulty they had listening to others laugh and joke about it.
The lyrics then take a haunting turn as the singer urges their lost love to "hold on," echoing the pain and the grief that they feel about the lost life. The chorus speaks to the promise they once made each other of being free someday, and the tragedy of all that their lost love sacrificed by throwing away their dreams. The song concludes with a plea for the lost love to know how much life they had to live and love to give, making the ultimate sacrifice all the more heartbreaking.
Overall, the lyrics to this song are a powerful reflection on love and loss, particularly the loss of a young life. They speak to the importance of cherishing the moments we have with those we love and the pain that comes from losing them too soon.
Line by Line Meaning
When I hear your name
Whenever your name comes into my consciousness
I go soaring right back to that place
I get transported back to the memories of our past experiences together
Red Lips, Basement, Bedroom
These words bring up specific sensory details that represent our intimate encounters
Insense, and your perfume
The scents we associated with those intimate encounters come back to me
Was the final time I saw your face...
Sadly, this was the last time I saw you
Monday at school
On a Monday morning while at school
"Oh my god! Did you hear who just died?"
There was shocking news of someone's death that caught our attention
I covered up my hears and I couldn't bear to hear them laugh
I couldn't bear to hear my peers laugh about death or anything related to it
About a shot that rang out in the night
The cause of the death, gunshots in the night, was announced and discussed
There's a place where you and I looked in eachother's eyes
We shared a moment when we were looking at each other straight in the eyes
And promised we'd be free someday
During that moment, we made a promise to each other that someday we'd attain freedom from something we were struggling with
So please tell me why you sacrificed all that you would be
I am perplexed by your choice to give up your future potential and possibilities
We hadn't much to weigh...
We didn't have many things to ponder upon when we made that promise
A photograph
I have only one snapshot of you
Is the only piece of you I have
That photograph is the only physical representation of you, that I own
In that Hula Skirt you
In that photo, you are wearing a Hula Skirt
Smiled Yet none of us knew
In that photo, you are smiling, but little did we know about the pain hiding behind that smile
How much pain there was behind your smile
We failed to recognize the tremendous amount of pain you were trying to hide behind that smile
You threw away your dreams
You gave up on the dreams you once had
Only heaven knows why you sacrificed all that you would be
It's hard to comprehend why you made that choice, only the heavens above can answer that
So much life to live
There was so much life yet to be lived
So much love to give
There was so much love within you yet to be shared
So much life to live
Again, stressing the fact that you had a lot of life left to live
So much love to give
Reiterating the fact that you were capable of sharing much love in this world
So much life to live
Emphasizing once more that your life was cut too short
So much love to give
Reminding everyone that you were a loving person, who deserved to give love to others
Contributed by Bella R. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Rhelyk
My favorite Voltaire story, my favorite MUSICIAN story, happened a good friend before I knew him. The same friend that introduced me to his music 10 years ago, and his stoy is a big reason why I'm still such a fan. A girl he went to high school with (and was good friends with) was the one that had introduced HIM to Voltaire back in '98 or '99. She was decidedly unpopular in that 'weird girl" way and was pretty relentlessly bullied about it, bullied so badly that she killed herself just before the sumer ended rather than returning to deal with the bulying for another year. A few years later at a small local show he went backstage for an autograph and told Voltaire about how much the girl meant to him and how she had gotten him into his music, to which Voltaire just kind of smiled and thanked him and said he was sorry for the loss, the usual shit you hear when you tell a stranger a deeply personal story. Some months later he went to another Voltaire show and went backstage to meet Voltaire again. As my friend tells it, he was talking to Voltaire and as he was mid-sentence talking again about why he got into his music and how much it meant to him he looked at the autograph he'd just gotten and realized Voltaire had already signed it with a condolence for his friend. My friend stopped cold and started to choke up, embarrased, and voltaire told him "it's Ok to cry".
Voltaire had not only remembered my friend's story but also the girl's name. It's pretty much the most awesome story I've ever heard about a musician and it's about a girl I've never met and can never meet and
Iget choked up thinking about it. This song makes me wonder just how many times Voltaire has heard my friend's story, told by different people about different people, about all their lost friends. Pretty sure the answer is "a lot" and "too many"EwigD
According to Voiltaire's wikipedia page his own girlfriend committed suicide in high school, and he was on the verge of following through himself, so yeah, Im sure your friend's stoy would resonate with him on a very personal level.
Beastwolf1
"She was decidedly unpopular in that 'weird girl" way and was pretty relentlessly bullied about it..."
Doesn't seem directly related.
Cory Hickman
Rhelyk that's so sad and I'm sorry about that. I like Voltaires music and I never knew people got bullied over it.
Craig H
My wife of 13 years died not long ago, suicide by hanging. We had a dream to move to Sweden one day. This song hit home more than you can imagine.
Eternal storm cloud
I’m sorry to hear that Craig….😢😞😔
Viktoria Helgeland
Every time I listen to this song, I get teary eyed. Whenever I start wanting to die again, I listen to this again. Hearing you sing about your experience makes me understand what I'd do to my fiance where I ever to go through with it. This song saved my life, and likely his too. And having watched the episode of gothic homemaking about suicide and depression, it really hit me to know that some of my favorite youtubers and that also my favorite singer had similar experiences and feelings as me.
Thank you for showing me I'm not alone and that it's okay to cry. If you come to the Fresno savemart center during an upcoming tour I would drag him with me to see the concert, no matter how much help we'd need to pay for tickets, because I want to show my support for you and the messages you've shared. Who knows how many others have been helped by this and others of your songs
El Gato
Currently in a dark place, breaking down after a lifetime of abuse. Yet, listening to this makes me think of that one person who strives to help me, whose hand is outstretched... I can't leave them alone. For them, I have to soldier on. Thanks, Voltaire.
Eternal storm cloud
Do you want to talk it is alright if you don’t want to I understand
Scott's Shots
you ok bro?