Coheed and Cambria – A Favor House Atlantic

I’ve always tried to refrain from writing about Coheed and Cambria songs in the past. Although they’re one of my favorite bands, their story spans 5 albums, and trying to make sense of all of this without the context is really hard. I’m giving it a try here but I’d appreciate any input from other fans.

In a paragraph, here’s what’s happened in the C&C story until this song: Coheed (a guy) and Cambria (a girl) had four children: Josephine, Claudio, Matthew and Maria. Wilhem Ryan, the Supreme Tri Mage of Heaven’s Fence (where they live) wants them all dead so he orchestrates a plan to kill everyone. Claudio is the only one who manages to escape and survive. Ambellina, a prise, is tasked with the job of watching over Claudio. When
they both try to leave Shylos Ten (a planet), they board a ship called the Camper Velourium that’s piloted by a guy called Al the Killer. They’re supposed to be meeting
Jesse Kilgannon, Claudio’s uncle, but things take an unexpected turn and that’s where this song starts.

(The comic presents this part of the story in a different way, scroll to the bottom to read the note).

Your eyes tell the stories of a day you wish you could
Recall the moments that once have
Retract the footsteps that brought us to this favor
I wouldn’t ask this of you

Al the Killer betrays the group and decides to bring them to House Atlantic, the base of Wilhelm Ryan. Ryan’s looking to kill Claudio (the son of Coheed and Cambria) since he wasn’t able to get his parents to kill him in the Second Stage Turbine Blade era.

Good eye, sniper
Here I’ll shoot, and you run

Unexpectedly, Al decides to make a stand and protect Claudio and Ambellina from certain death at the hands of Ryan, he chooses to stay and shoot with his sniper rifle while they try to escape. It’s possible that Al’s obsession (or love) for
Ambellina leads him to correct his previous dick move.

The words you scribbled on the walls
With the loss of friends you didn’t have

Al had this thing for with white girls where he’d kill them with his rifle and stash
their bodies in a closet, hot shit, right? He’s now made the decision to save them but they were never his friends (the loss of friends you didn’t have). We never knew what was written on the wall but maybe the comic will reveal this.

I’ll call you when the time is right
Are you in or are you out?
For them all to know the end of us all, all

Al urges the group to run (are you in this?) while he holds the enemy for as long as he can. Ryan’s troops are unaware of this plan so it gives Claudia and Ambellina enough time to escape the planet.

Run quick, they’re behind us
Didn’t think we’d ever make it
This close to safety in one piece
Now you wanna kill me in the act of what could maybe
Save us from sleep and what we are

 One of the problems of the verse/chorus/verse structure of some songs is that you already know the end of a story before the next verse. In this case we’re back at the beginning with the “Didn’t think we’d ever make it this close to safety in one piece“. Ambellina is asking if Al wants to kill her (a really bad idea at this point, being that she’s the prise whose mission is to take care of Claudio and save the universe and that kind of stuff).

Bye bye beautiful
Don’t bother to write
Disturbed by your words and they’re calling all cars
Face step, let down.
Face step, step down.

This is Al’s farewell to Ambellina (“By bye beautiful, don’t bother to write“). He’s still obsessed with her but he notices that they’re calling all patrols to try and capture them.

After this scene, Claudio and Ambellina manage to escape on Jesse’s ship (Jesse’s
Claudio’s uncle). We don’t know what happend to Al the Killer but it’s probably safe to say he died defending the rest.

If you want to read more about the story behind Coheed and Cambria’s music you should check out the Coheed Wiki at Wikia and the Amory Wars entry in Wikipedia.

Note: According to melmou90 on the Reddit thread, none of this happens in the comic (which was written a couple of years after the album):

In the comic Al never became a good guy in the end and while trying to kill Claudio, Claudio controls his mind to help kill enemies end then Claudio defends the group against a giant robot that was under House Atlantic, and then they escape.

PS: I don’t have any songs in queue for the next couple of weeks, so if you have any suggestions please let me know by writing a comment here, sending a tweet to @rockgenie or emailing me at rockgenius@mheroin.com.