"Island"

"Island" is a song by the American rock band Coheed and Cambria. It is the first track on their 2015 album The Color Before the Sun. A demo version of the song was released on The Color Before the Sun (Big Beige / 4th Street Demos) album and on the The Color Before the Sun: Deconstructed album.

Lyrics
[Sample] "This is the Brooklyn bound Q express train, the next stop is..."

[Verse 1] I'm just a big dud, foolish from the start I make a wrong move and the world just falls apart And there's no cure for this disease I'm making up So what's the fuss?

I live inside this head and I'm at war Hero and villain, same time keeping score And I'm not sure what I'm to do inside these walls Not anymore, with my own life

[Chorus] Get off the island and swim back to shore Girl, I don't think I could last here, one second longer 'Cause in these waters, I'm done for

Now, give me one good reason to stay here, at all When the fee is too big, our apartment's too small Where's my lifesaver when I'm screaming danger?

I'm screaming danger Get off the island and swim back to shore

[Verse 2] I'm just victim of unfortunate circumstance And this was my choice, so shit, well I'll be damned And I've got to stop dwelling on what I could have had All the times I could have, oh, I just want to...

[Chorus] Get off the island and swim back to shore Girl, I don’t think I could last here, one second longer 'Cause in these waters, I'm done for

Now, give me one good reason to stay here, at all When the fee is too big, our apartment's too small Where's my lifesaver when I'm screaming danger?

[Post-Chorus] I just can't stay here any longer, help I just can't stay here any longer, help I just can't...

[Bridge] And maybe, one day From your, sand I'll turn away And never see you, again Island, get off the...

[Chorus] Get off the island and swim back to shore Girl, I don't think I could last here, one second longer 'Cause in these waters I'm done for

Now, give me one good reason to stay here, at all When the fee is too big, our apartment's too small Where's my lifesaver when I'm screaming danger? Where's my lifesaver when I'm screaming danger? Where's my lifesaver when I'm screaming danger?

I'm screaming danger Screaming danger Screaming danger

Music Video
An official music video was released for the song on March 10, 2016. A director was not credited.



Background
Sanchez said, ""Island" is very much the beginning of the record. It opens with the sound of the Q Train going into Brooklyn, and that's the train that I would frequent when going in and out of Brooklyn into Manhattan. It's very much the beginning of my identity crisis when writing this record, too. I had a hard time writing songs in this new apartment—or at least I thought I did. And it's basically a song to my wife, saying that she needed to hear me and understand that it wasn't working for me. I needed to leave and get back to the country, and that's essentially what "Island" is about—just the apartment being too small, and the exposure being too much for me. When I started the song it was all on acoustic, and that was the beginning of this idea of the album being a solo effort. But we transformed it into a rocker, and the guitar at the beginning claws into the idea of distance and landscape, which I really didn't have being in that apartment. I was longing for space, and the opening guitar line is supposed to resonate that. Then the band comes in, and everything becomes tight and crunchy. Again, that's meant to be a musical representation of the chaos I was experiencing inside the space of that apartment."

On the music video's description, Sanchez wrote: "When I think of these two iconic characters, I think of opposite attraction. I think of myself and my wife. How two opposite ends of a spectrum can create harmony and balance. In one way or another, these characters have been paired up with like-minded love interests, the Bat and the Cat... The Alien and the Amazonian... I wanted to bring the Dark and the Light together."