REVEAL: SATURN RETURN

   This song has always fascinated me. It's a real 'what the fuck' moment on the album which is full of them, but this is the strangest track. As I mentioned before, Peter notes the song is built from leftover bits from other songs, a piano line and some doodling. The lyrics as explained by Michael are about a woman working at a convenience store, one night she takes a ladder to the roof and has an epiphany to change her life. The more I listen to it, the more I appreciate the song and I love the performance from around the time Collapse was released, just before the break-up. Some excellent lyrical stuff going on here!







SATURN RETURN

Easy to poke yourself square in the eye
Harder to like yourself, harder to try
These Elvis poses, postcards, and neoprene
Roses a dollar a stem
Everyone’s sleeping or pulling a long haul
The keys in the cooler

It's 3 a.m.

And Saturn is beckoning no one
Is off on its own
Is offering up

Late shift convenience store cut out the lights
Telescope roof towards the northwestern sky
You pull the ladder up, no one's the wiser
You find your sights and discover

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Harder to look yourself square in the eye
Easy to take off

You found the ladder in the pattern of your wrist
You’ve seen and you’ve marked horizons
Mother was difficult she made you cry
Cover the mirror, look to the sky
You climb into your rocket ship triumph
Lift up and hold out your hands

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Saturn is orbiting nothing
Is off on its own
Is breaking from home

Saturn return when you chase down its moons
Throw them into a new gravity

Harder to look yourself square in the eye
Easy to poke yourself, easy as pie
Easy to take off, harder to fly
Harder to wake Galileo 

   Most of what's below is following the piano chords, but I've thrown in some attempts at the doodling. There are forms he returns to and there's some well-placed feedback and some discordant open strings going on, so experiment. Not noted are times when the song hangs on the Fm post chorus. Also, The Capo is SUPER IMPORTANT!!

SATURN RETURN

CAPO 3 (All frets and notes mentioned are relative to Capo position)

Intro/Outro (Fm)

Guitar 1: Slide on the B String between the 2^nd and 7^th frets, the recurring form being the 6^th to 7^th fret

Guitar 2: Approximation Below- the key is the 4^th fret stuff, the rest is emphasizing some of the slide notes from Guitar 1

g |------2-1-1-1-1-0---|

D |-----------------3--|

A#|-4-1-2-2-2----------|

F |--4-----------------|

C |--------------------|

G |--------------------|

Verse (Fm-Cm-Bb-Ab)

g |-1---0---3---1----|

D |-3---1---3---1----|

A#|-2---2---0---2----|

F |-0---2---0---3----|

C |-----0---2---3----|

G |-----0---3---1----|

  

Chorus (Fm-Cm x3, Db)

g |-1---0--------1--|

D |-3---1--------3--|

A#|-2---2--------3--|

F |-0---2--------3--|

C |-----0--------1--|

G |-----0---x3---1--|

Chorus Riff (Fm-Cm x3, Db)

g |-0---0-1------------|

D |-3------1-----------|

A#|-2-----------3>5>7--|

F |-0-----------2------|

C |--------------------|

G |----------x3--------|

Bridge (Ab-Db x3 Cm)

g |-1---1-------0----|

D |-1---1-------1----|

A#|-2---2-------2----|

F |-3---2-------2----|

C |-3---1-------0----|

G |-1---1---x3--0----|