Her Eyes Have Seen The End
This may be my favourite song on the album. As you might hear from the production and vocal arrangements, it’s very influenced by Arctic Monkeys, especially their 2012 album AM. This album was a colossal influence on my music tastes, and Her Eyes Have Seen The End is not just musically inspired, but also lyrically inspired from that album, specifically the song Arabella. To me, it’s about this fantastical woman, almost on another plane of existence. You worship this woman because it seems impossible that she could even exist. And, well, she doesn’t! I loved that concept, and Her Eyes is what came out when I put myself in those shoes and imagined a woman who could save or destroy; whose hold on you was unbreakable; who could make your world end just by looking at you. Maybe one day I’ll find that woman, but until then, I’ll just keep singing about her.
I also took lyrical inspiration from a Panic! at the Disco song called Sarah Smiles. In that song, Brendon Urie sings “You fooled me once with your eyes now honey / you fooled me twice with your lies and I say…” That rhyme of “eyes” and “lies” stuck with me, and was the reason for the subtle lyric change in the third pre-chorus of Her Eyes from “But mine already ended with her eyes” to “But mine already ended with her lies“. I originally called the song “Eyes/Eyes/Lies” – yet another Panic! at the Disco inspired choice (from their song Girls/Girls/Boys) however after finding that you can’t use a slash symbol in file names, thought it would be too inconvenient, so made the (much better, in hindsight) decision to call it Her Eyes Have Seen The End.
Her Eyes contains one of my favourite lyrics I’ve written too: “If she’s the church, I’d be the congregation / ’cause I can’t help but fall prey to all her tricks”. I love the double meaning of the word prey/pray here, as well as the sly dig at organised religion.