Black Holes was actually one of the first songs written for the new album, which is almost 2 years ago now! The song is extremely personal as it represents both a true story and an actualization that I think needs to be made in such times.
The song is actually written in the chronological order of how this self-actualization happens. Starting with my beginning, then into the moment of realization, and then the post-reflections I have to help others through the same thing.
I lived for 20 years in Abu Dhabi and it was without doubt a place I considered home, even though I am not a "national". From the moment I left the country for University in the UK, and ever since, I felt my sense of "home" was being lost and I had nothing to replace that feeling of identity or self. Instead of looking to develop and establish a new identity and home, I started analyzing myself and my failures to explain why I was feeling the way I was. This mental self-mutilation eventually leaked its way through to my relationships, family, my friends, and my whole world. This probably describes the fist verse, which is simplified into:
Verse 1
"Born with the world at my feet,
Content with anything cuz
Every part of me then, held some identity
Punished myself for inconsistencies
Beyond, beyond my doing"
The chorus that repeats stems from the title and the main focus of the song; a black hole. Most associate black holes with time warps or time travel, and for me this analogy represented an "escape", an easy way out, a form of desperation where I could just travel back in time and go back to having everything I had before, and run away from the newly found emptiness, confusion, and anger that came with what I lose in the first verse. Feeling sorry for myself was almost attractive, getting angry felt like being alienated, which practically built my own outer-space, where I felt lost and just wanted to resort to the past and the parts I used to have, to make me feel better.
Chorus
"Well I gave in to pity's pull
And got lost in the heart of spite
So I built the blackest hole
To take me back in time...."
The second verse explains continues on from the first verse, but on the conclusive end of the self-realization. Once the phase had passed I realized that the I journey I had taken was good for me, it helped me develop as person to become a true individual. It gave me my own story to tell and helped me realize the age-old saying of "Nothing worth having comes easy". I understood that that personal development, character, inner strength, and perseverance were some of the rarest things anyone could possess, they were rare materials. However, hindsight is a beautiful thing and whilst looking back at all of this now, makes me wonder why I ever let myself get that bad.
Verse 2
"What I wont were rare materials
That until now, seemed to offer any value at all
If I knew then, what I know now
I wouldn't have let myself
Myself drown out..."
The bridge basically takes the entire theme and condenses it down to one main message. Everything happens for a reason, and there is no point trying to blame yourself for things that have happened, or out of your control, because they would have happened anyways. Hindsight is your enemy, self-pity will consume you, and its a situation that not everybody understands or even escapes. It will ruin you. The only thing you can blame is yourself, for putting yourself through despair or stress. So to anyone else who is going through that, it's their fault. For everybody going through that, it's all their fault. At the end of the day the only thing you have is yourself.
"I only had myself to blame,
I only had myself
You only have yourselves to blame
We only have ourselves"
The meaning behind the song is made to mirror the vocal style. The verses and bridge represent the development and individual growth, while the singing outlines what problem the growls are trying to solve. It's actually a flip of how the normal person hears these vocal styles. Before the last chorus, we purposely added that little clean section where it sounds like I'm actually in a black hole, and I sing "so take me back in time". This particular time I say it has a completely different meaning to the other times it is sang. As individual as the music of the song drastically changes to the clean section, so does the meaning. In this line, the take me back in time is capturing the moment itself where all the pity and spite was. It's a back-flash, a time-warp back to the subject, to the moment where you create black holes. Hence the sound of the abyss-like effects that sound like you are in that black hole, the defining yet silent frame in the climax of a movie. The song, and the black hole, start to close in on itself as the end of the song zooms back in, and we are back to addressing the problem with the chorus.
The song warps back to the present and re-iterates the self-actualization made.