"3rd Planet" by Modest Mouse is Alive, by Jocelyn Gale

“Third Planet” by Modest Mouse is inhaling and exhaling, letting salty tears fall down its cheek and wondering aloud about it all. It is the album opener to their third studio album, The Moon and Antarctica. It fills your chest with breath and emotion and heaves at your heart and yet, sometimes it feels fun. There is such strength in its 3 minutes and 59 seconds as it contemplates themes of sorrow, living and dying and purpose. 

I’ve known this song for nearly, if not all, of my 21 years of life. My dad played it while we drove down roads that were fairly empty after soccer practices and sang it loudly in front of an open fridge while browsing for lunch. When I came to college, he compiled a playlist of many songs for me, including, “Third Planet,” and as I walked between classes, or sometimes at night when my dorm room felt too cramped– I paid more attention to what was being said. I always found the tone and chords of the song to be extremely compelling and I knew the lyrics, but I hadn’t taken the time to understand them. What was the band trying to say here? I have listened, and listened, and listened some more, and have finally reached my (malleable but well thought out) conclusion of “Third Planet” by Modest Mouse.

The song opens with a desperate lack of energy, and an introduction to the idea of life and purpose:

“Everything that keeps me together is falling apart

I've got this thing that I consider my only art of fucking people over

My boss just quit the job

Says he's goin out to find blind spots and he'll do it.”

The opening two lines represent the narrator feeling lost; they have lost something and their purpose has become obsolete. It’s depresseing and exhausting, this feeling of loss. The third and fourth line imply a search for purpose. It reminds me a bit of someone having a midlife crisis–this change of energy, the impulse led by fear of death and the end. These lines are an introduction to the idea of purpose–more specifically, the human desire for that purpose: The idea that there must be a purpose to this life, and it ought to be found in order to live fruitfully. 

By the 38 second mark, we hear the reference to the “3rd Planet.” 

“The 3rd planet is sure that they're being watched

By an eye in the sky that can't be stopped when you get to the promise land

You're gonna shake that eye's hand.”

The third planet here is described as an entity outside of Earth, seemingly a structure or being that is alive and watching Earth. I think it’s referenced as a “3rd Planet” to bring it, conceptually, closer to our idea of Earth. When they write that the 3rd planet is watching, this is not in the same way we imagine a god or other worldly being to be doing so–by way of expectation and judgement but rather with a sense of observation and understanding. This is clarified in the final portion of the lyrics with the line that uses handshaking as a symbol of equality and togetherness. 

As the song progresses, its tone shifts and its lyrics develop. The creativity and tonal language of these lyrics pours out so beautifully as it’s sung. The guitar is strummed rapidly and there’s a solid, consistent beat that pulsates as the lyrics are sung with choppy, desperate vocals. 

The tone of lyrics versus the tone of sound, pacing and instrumentation contrast each other wonderfully. The mood of the song can be subjected to where your mind focuses while listening, it’s able to elicit multiple emotions as it develops. 

“Your heart felt good

It was drippin' pitch and made of wood

And your hands and knees

Felt cold and wet on the grass beneath

Well outside naked, shivering, looking blue

From the cold sunlight that's reflected off the moon.”

It’s very descriptive in its language, giving vision to the feelings the narrator is experiencing. The lyrics make the emotions more tangible, that feeling of desperation. I could talk in circles about how much I adore the melancholy image of sunlight that’s gone cold as it’s reflected off the moon–but conceptually, it’s clear that there’s an overtaking blue tone to these lyrics. This reminds me of the pulling vocals–subtle but present. I recall the depressive feelings of that opening line and now it all comes together; every sense is engaged here, you can feel these lyrics on your fingertips, and the emotion as it pulls at your chest. 

I had always noticed the phrase, “baby cum angels,” that comes up in the next portion of the song. It’s easily my favorite line: it’s simply ear-catching. However, it wasn’t until I’d really gone over the lyrics that I realized its purpose outside of piquing the interest of the listener. This is in reference to the loss of a child, this narrator's child. 

“Baby cum angels, fly around you

Reminding you we used to be three and not just two

And that's how the world began

And that's how the world will end.”

This circles us back to the opening of the song, those thoughts of life and purpose. The death of this child is the inciting incident to this spiral. This desperation is derived from the time spent wondering why this would’ve happened to their child, and in turn, without this child, who is he?

There’s more story as the song unfolds, about both the narrator's experiences with loss as well as this leading to his search for purpose. 

“Well, a 3rd had just been made and we were swimming in the water

Didn't know then, was it a son, was it a daughter

And it occurred to me that the animals are swimming

Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies

And another had been found, another ocean on the planet

Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic, and how.”

I am in awe of the artistry with which this song was created. It’s something I hear and wish I would’ve thought of. This wonderful imagery of life and death and memory and the effects that those things have on our brains is just stunning. If this were an art piece in a museum, it’s something I’d sit on a bench and stare at until it was dusk and the museum was empty. This description of humanity being in tandem with Earth, possessing its salty water in their veins and bodies being extensions of the ocean and its unknown–it is jam packed with possible interpretations. I don’t think it's a coincidence that the ocean was the aspect of Earth used in this metaphor. There is so little humans know about the ocean - this fact is backed by data and generally considered objective. To combine a human with oceanic qualities is to say there is so little we know about the role of humanity in the universe. And is this not true? We know so little about the universe around us, it’s what insights much of the fear of death and its inevitability; it’s what sparks the search for purpose. 

We see in the final portion of the song that the narrator's search for purpose landed him with no answer as to why. Why would this child die? This harrowing question clung to him in the mourning of loss, that led him to the exhausted state of seeing this answer is nowhere to be found. 

“Well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth

If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were

And the universe is shaped exactly like the earth

If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were

The universe is shaped exactly like the earth.”

It feels both exhausted and hopeful. This answer doesn’t exist: the wonder for why things happen, what their purpose is, and what the purpose of life itself is. It's an unfindable answer. The hope comes from the fact that maybe that’s okay. This search for purpose takes away from life as it exists tangibly. What is beyond Earth doesn’t have answers, this 3rd planet watcher is no different from the humans here, it doesn’t know better than any earthly being–it just exists. The search for purpose is a desperate circle to a nonexistent end. 

The song ends with the same two lines it started with: 

“Everything that keeps me together is falling apart

I've got this thing that I consider my only art of fucking people over.”

This refers back to that circle, the desperate plea for answers. Even though this narrator has discovered that the answer does not exist– he still wants it. He is still human, and so he still can not find solace in the unknown.

There is an immense life in this song. It has so many dynamics, the lyrics juxtapose the sounds and strong beats, it is sung with whiny desperation but remains loud and commanding. The qualities of the song reflect the traits of the human mind, to be more than one thing and to feel more than one thing simultaneously. The complexity of the song moves like that of the complexities of the human body and mind. I cannot stress enough how this song might make you feel something one day, and an entirely different feeling on another–remaining fresh with each listen. It sings and breathes and strums through my headphones on repeat for days at a time but it has yet to get old.