BUTCHER VANITY
The title can be interpreted a few ways:
1. "Butcher's vanity", with "Butcher" as a noun. A butcher who is vain.
2. "Butcher vanity", with "butcher" as a verb. To chop up one's vanity.
3. If you're Google, it can also be interpreted as a cool sink project.
[Verse 1]
They say
I really wanted to have the first stanza of the song to have a "They say/They tell/They [etc]" pattern in the lines. Both Jamie and I specifically looove word/phrase repetition x
my hunger's a problem
They tell me to curb my appetite
They say I can't keep myself
From trying a bite of every plate in sight
They worship patience, a virtue
Oh, they tell me gluttony’s a sin
i didn't realize it until long after the song had been out but i subconsciously quoted the flavor text for the MtG card Exsanguinate here. i don't really play black mana i'm much more of a mono-blue person so idk where that came from
But my desire, it’s bottomless
I wanna
slit your throat
Refers to the slaughtering process, where the throat is slit right after the animal is killed.
(Shoutout to Wikihow How To Slaughter Cattle. lol)
and eat ‘till I get sick
[Chorus 1]
The slaughter's on
I’d love to see you come undone
Unsatisfied
Until I’ve got you flayed alive
So grab a plate, have a taste
这口味让我
陶醉
Yeah, it should be 沉醉. Jamie and Vane (obviously) can't read Chinese so no one caught it at the PV stage. I also can't read Chinese, apparently. Sorry
(The flavor's intoxicating)
I’m still preying on a butcher’s vein
[Verse 2]
To
truss you up
Tying up with twine, specifically usually done with poultry. But I'm sure you could do it with other things, too.
in
pretty patterns
if you ever see any alliteration with the letter P in any flavor foley lyrics there's a 99% chance it's my fault
Oh, to dress your flesh up with the works
to dress up can obviously refer to clothing, but "dressing", as in field dressing, is the process of removing internal organs, the head, and otherwise inedible or undesired parts of a carcass before further butchering is done. regardless of what meaning the word takes here, miss meatgirl sees what she's doing as prettying up her prey. double entendres!
Perfectly portioned by a dagger
Serving the finest leftover dessert
Why would I desecrate a carcass?
Why let the offal go to waste?
"offal" refers to entrails and internal organs, the things often being removed when dressing an animal.
most would think the act of butchering a carcass is desecrating it, but our narrator would beg to differ - it's only sacrilegious to let those butchered bits go to waste! something tells me she's going a bit further than just saving bones to make stock, though
yeah this song has a lot of meat puns in it
A perfect strike to
fix
"Fix" here could mean to "resolve", as in "you shouldn't have that look on your face!", but can more excitingly mean "affix", as in "You should keep that look on your face forever!"
the horror on your face!
[Chorus 2a]
The slaughter’s mine
Blood and
viscera
another word for internal organs - see "offal" above
divine
Preserved and primed
In reference to meat preservation as well as prime meats
Each muscle divvied up to dine
i think this line is sooo fun to say outloud. i really love this chorus because i think we went absolutely crazy with the rhymes: mine/divine/primed/dine/high/zai/ai/time. we're crazy
And in the high, 我存在 (There I am)
Tasting 血淋淋的爱 (A bloody, dripping love)
I’ll devour all of you in time
[Chorus 2b]
Oh, your heart
Aortic work of art
the aorta is the largest blood vessel in the human body, directly attached to the heart and running down to the abdomen. i think miss meatgirl just really appreciates human anatomy!
My love, my knife
To carve it out, your life
like, really appreciates it!!
So grab a plate, have a taste
这口味让我陶醉 (The flavor's intoxicating)
I’m still preying on a butcher’s vein
[Bridge]
Jamie wrote this entire thing. It's so awesome
To snap the sinew,
connective tissue, tendons, etc. usually referred to as "silver skin" when it shows up on cuts of meat
I want
To get within you,
I want
To not forgive you
"rigor mortis" is the process of a dead body's muscles and tissue stiffening up temporarily after death; mold and mildew are, of course, signs of a corpse in advanced stages of rot and decay. words dripping in malice coming from someone like meatgirl...
Rigor mortis, mold and mildew
But dear, you should be grateful
That I won’t waste a good meal
That all my love’s precision
Carves a cut to simply die for
[douyin “huh?” sound effect]
there's this viral douyin (chinese tiktok) that's like, "when you don't want the neighbors to think you're too poor to afford ribs", and it's just a guy cutting tofu with a cleaver but smacking the cutting board REALLY LOUDLY (because when you prepare ribs you have to cut through the bone so you chop the cleaver with a ton of force. and it's loud).
I love that douyin so much. I found a
knock off version of it without bgm that used like every douyin sound effect in it and gave it to Jamie Paige to sample. I think the cleaver hit sound effects are actually used in the bridge/at the end. But yeah my beloved douyin "huh?!" sfx.
TO GET WITHIN YOU, I WANT
TO SCAR THE TISSUE
BUTTERFLY
slicing meat almost all the way in half to make a thinner, more uniform cut. often done with chicken or shrimp!
AND RECTIFY YOU
I NEED TO BE YOUR AFTERLIFE
EUCHARIST, I DEIFY
catholicism, baby! protestant christians refer to this as communion - the whole body and blood thing with bread and wine. its a ritual of symbolic cannibalism!
Yi Xi
Has
Become
Catholic
GOD, OH, FUCK THE FORK AND KNIFE
I’LL RIP IN HANDS AND TEETH AND TAKE A BITE
[Chorus 3a]
The slaughter's on
I’d love to see you come undone
Unsatisfied
Until I see you flayed alive
So grab a plate, have a taste
这口味让我陶醉 (The flavor's intoxicating)
I’m still preying on a butcher’s vein
[Chorus 3b]
And now the slaughter’s mine
My darling, get under the knife
Your broken pride
A cut so perfect in its prime
"prime" being the highest USDA grade of beef, reserved for only the most marbled and tender steaks
All that I see,
sixty-three,
This is supposed to be an audible pun (?? is that a term), with "see" sounding like "C", so it's "C63" (like 63 Celsius- USDA recommended safe cooking temperature for most meats)
Jamie was worried the pun wasn't obvious enough, which is why the PV text displays it as 63°
Just adding on that I really wanted this pun in particular to work and I'm SO glad we made it work here I am so cheesed
为让我心醉的你
(For the you I hunger for)
This translation is literally a little closer to "for the you that fascinated me". But the Chinese term for "fascinate" (心醉) uses the same character (醉) meaning "drunk" that's used in the term for "intoxicated" (沉醉) in the other refrains, so I localized it to "hunger for" instead to carry that kind of eat/drink connotation through in English.
I'll be waiting, so impatiently
[Outro]
(Oh, your heart
Aortic work of art
My love, my knife
To carve it out, your life)
So grab a plate, have a taste
这口味让我陶醉 (The flavor's intoxicating)
I’m still preying on a butcher’s vein
Still praying, hopeless and in vain.