Annotations for Exogenesis Symphony Pt 1 Overture

Lyric: Who are we?
 Where are we?
 When are we?
 Why are we?
 Who are we?
 Where are we?
 Why, why, why?
Annotation:
These are all big questions with many different answers depending on religion and worldviews. The narrator is trying to find answers, but isn’t necessarily finding any.

Lyric: Trapped in God’s program
Annotation:
Being  trapped in God’s program implies that you are trapped somewhere/in something you have no control over, which in this case he has no chance of escaping this place/state of mind/destiny etc. This evokes the notion that the Universe is a program, like the concept delved into by movies such as The Matrix. Bellamy is saying that he doesn’t know how to get out of this simulation (an allusion to the first line’s use of the word “aping”).  This line could be related to the concept of “divine computer” proposed by  Milan Kundera in his book  Immortality. The divine computer is linked with a pessimistic and existentialist view of life, in which human beings are just  “thrust out into the world obeying to a particular throw of the dice”. This worldview is also pictured by Bellamy in the following lines when he asks for the reasons of our existence.

Lyric: Aping my soul
 You stole my overture
Annotation:
To  ape something is to take something and imitate it, often in a strange or unthinkable way. To ‘ape’ one’s soul would be to create another ‘soul’ with defining features that are wrong or absurd. Bellamy is saying that through this imitation, his overture (his “introduction to something more substantial”) has been stolen, and consequently, he is left with startlingly existential questions about the nature of life and the Universe.

