Annotations for Verona

Lyric: I won’t let you feel alone
Annotation:
After being captive in their own homes and alone for so long the lovers finally choose to break the rules for the sake of each other and their deteriorating mental wellbeing. No longer will they stay apart despite the risks, emphasising the power of the love between them.

Lyric: Too much to ask
Annotation:
Our lovers cannot take being apart any longer and are beginning to realise that in order to be together they will have to break the restrictions they live under. Once again this is a link to Romeo and Juliet where the houses of Capulet and Montague would not allow the couple to be together, so the pair have to break restrictions for their love of one another.

Lyric: Keep us apart
Annotation:
Social distancing became a prominent and important rule during the Covid 19 Pandemic. This song provides us with the tale of how, due to this distance, our lovers cannot come together and are suffering as a result. “Keeping us apart” suggests it is a restriction and not a choice, and is very reminiscent of many news articles and television during the pandemic era when many people were getting desperate in “lockdown” periods. A common and chilling phrase that brings us back to that hard time.

Lyric: Can we touch and taste forbidden bliss?
Annotation:
Pursuing the social distancing interpretation of the song, the idea of touching through intimacy and sex could be referring to the separation of many couples and married people during the pandemic. Many areas of the world had social distancing restrictions such as ‘avoiding casual sex’ and limiting the number of people you could approach that were not part of your household. On a more literal level, the love story between Romeo and Juliet was hindered by the respective families, and this explains why their potential ‘bliss’ is described as ‘forbidden’.

Lyric: Can we kiss, contagion on our lips?
Annotation:
The slight change with respect to the intro seems to support the COVID-related double meaning. This could also be a subtle homage to Muse’s previous album  Simulation Theory with the song “ Thought Contagion”, which sings of a very different virus spreading and affecting people’s lives.

Lyric: Take off your clothes and take off your mask
Annotation:
With a possible double meaning, the metaphoric “mask” could be another reference to enforcement of face-masks during the Covid-19 pandemic. A silvery mask is also what the two characters in the video wear, which associates them to the rebel factions in the album’s plot as seen in the previously released videos.

Lyric: Can we kiss with poison on our lips?
 Well, I’m not scared
Annotation:
The lyrics “kiss with poison on our lips” reference the famous lover’s suicide from  Romeo and Juliet. It can be speculated that these lyrics could take a double meaning, referencing people’s socially distanced experience of love and intimacy during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a recurring theme on the album.

