The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives
From Peppercascade
The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives was a hit single from the 80s metal group The Green Eyed Posse. The song was the second track on their final album, Commonly Misnamed Atrocities (1989). The song topped the charts for 11 consecutive months spanning 1989 to 1990. Some Pepper Theorists believe that the lyrics in this song accurately predict a grim future for mankind and describes, vaguely, certain steps that will be needed to protect civilization from extinction.
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Composition
The song was composed over a two year period under a curtain of strict secrecy. The song was written by Dustin Boehr and was typically performed by the regular members of the band.
Percussion
It is rumored that in the original studio recording of the song, Allison Nelson (percussionist) used a ceremonial Dayak drum. The Dayak are an indigenous tribe from Borneo known for their high altitude tree houses and their traditional practice of headhunting. Although the tribe has been gradually assimilated into the greater Indonesian culture over the past hundred years, they are known to have steadfastly refused to give up their ancient religious artifacts. How Nelson may have obtained such a drum is not known.
Lyrics
Dustin Boehr began writing the lyrics for the song in early 1987, while serving in the Dagom Gaden Monastery in northern Tibet. Although the vast majority of Dagom Gaden monks died in a freak meteorite strike in 1992 (see Dagom Gaden Monastary for full article), a few monks managed to survive the disaster and some have provided provocative eye-witness accounts of Boehr's penmanship. The late Songtsän Detsen, a revered Tibetan monk, recalls a time when he had inadvertently interrupted Boehr while writing the lyrics. Detsen said that he entered Dustin Boehr's study at mid-afternoon to retrieve a certain religious book he had lent Boehr. He found the book on table near the door, as if Dustin was finished with it. But before leaving, Detsen had stopped to listen to the tune that Dustin was humming from somewhere else in the room. Songtsän Detsen described the effect of the tune during a live CBC interview in 1996:
"The rhythm became the skeleton supporting my earthly body. At first, tears of hope steamed down my cheeks forming large puddles on the floor. But then darkness itself sang through Dustin San's voice and it shook me to my very soul. His was the voice of a lily; my ear a dead pool buried deep in the earth."
According to Detsen, it was already late at night when he left Dustin Boehr's study, though it felt like he was there only for a few moments. Some Pepper Theorists believe this story is evidence of Dustin's strange mystic abilities, but critics of Songtsän Detsen's story claim that "he [was] just a senile old man" (Detsen was 96 years old at the time).
Many variations of The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives lyrics exist because the band never sang it exactly the same way twice. The lyrics posted below is the version included in the album's cd jacket:
[Lyrics have been removed by an unknown source. See discussion for information.]
The Green Eyed Posse and Prophesy
(See Pepper Prophesies main article)
Many connections have been drawn between The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives and the band's mysterious Voodoo Mandate. Many Pepper Theorists believe that lyrics from The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives mirror the same general theme of the Voodoo Mandate. Other theorists claim that whatever spectral forces compelled and empowered Dustin Boehr to write The Eye Flashing Before Your Lives were also involved in the drafting of the Voodoo Mandate. Accordingly, some theorists believe that the song lyrics are less refined and more elemental than the Voodoo Mandate. The question remains a huge talking point for Pepper Theorists.
