Pompei Place

Source:

Pompeii is regarded as one of the most famous cities of history, especially when it comes to
understanding European (primarily Roman or Italian) culture. Pompeii is that city, that got burnt and
buried by a raging volcano called Mount Vesuvius, back in 79 AD. The estimated 2,000 people who died
in the ancient Roman city when they could not escape were not overwhelmed by the lava, but rather
asphyxiated by the gases and ashes and later covered in volcanic debris to leave a mark of their physical
presence millennia later. Pompeii was a city of a population of around 20 thousand people at the time,
which isn’t much if you think about it today, but back then the population of the world used to be less
than 500 million. Considering this number, Pompeii was a fairly big city with a lot people living there.

The remains of the city still exist in Bay of Naples in modern day Italy. Where now, more than 3 million
people are living in just around 10 km radius of Mount Vesuvius, which is still regarded as an active
volcano. Vesuvius is still regarded as an active volcano, although its current activity produces little more
than sulfur-rich steam from vents at the bottom and walls of the crater. Vesuvius is a stratovolcano at
the convergent boundary, where the African Plate is being subducted beneath the Eurasian Plate.

Pompeii Song
As stated by the songwriter, he was reading a book and he found images of stucked bodies, and how the
people were trapped in the positions they died in. The song is what he imagined as a conversation
between two of these people.

Lyrics Analysis 1

Source: https://www.lyricinterpretations.com/bastille/pompeii

The title “Pompeii” gives away a lot of the meaning of the song. In A.D. 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted:
“Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above.” It hadn’t erupted in 1800 years before
that, so the people had no idea it was even a volcano. The eruption happened so quickly that people
were mummified almost instantly, which is described in the line: “In your pose as the dust settled
around us.”

One of the stories told about Pompeii being buried during that eruption is based on discoveries made
since then. When archaeologists uncovered the city, they found many works of erotic art, pornographic
in a way unequalled in any other Roman artwork. According to Darren Hibbs, Pompeii was discovered in
1599, and the discoverer Domenico Fontana “was so shocked by what he saw, he didn’t believe it was fit
to release upon the world.” In my own Christian background, it is commonly accepted that the eruption
of Mount Vesuvius was actually a judgment upon a city so depraved in its sexual mores that God saw fit
to destroy it, like he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah of Bible times. The lyrics refer to the sinfulness of
the city in the lines: “We were caught up and lost/ in all of our vices”

This sinfulness is also referred to in the allusion made in the lines: “Oh where do we begin?/The rubble
or our sins?” Where would the city of Pompeii best begin to recover itself—in removing the rubble and
rebuilding, or in removing the sins that they felt had brought on the destruction?
I imagine that the literal meaning of the song, the story of Pompeii, is not the whole meaning, though. I
can see it paralleled in romantic relationships—how we make mistakes that destroy our relationship,
that bring the “walls . . .tumbling down/In the city that we love.” And yet, at times we can close our
eyes, and it can feel as if nothing has changed at all.

Lyrics Analysis 2

Source: https://medium.com/@christopherrobertson_18950/pompeii-an-analysis-bfcb873525a7

As the title suggests, this song was inspired by the Roman city of Pompeii, which was famously
consumed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The destruction happened so suddenly that the city’s
inhabitants were buried alive in poses that seem to indicate that they knew death was coming, yet
somehow caught them in the moment, freezing them in time.

He-heu, heu
He-heu, heu
He-heu, heu
He-heu, heu

This chant-like, almost Gregorian repetition is not just some arbitrarily-chosen pleasant sound, but a Latin
word for “alas!” It sets the tone for the song in two ways: first, with a somber, sad emotional feeling (this
is also achieved by the descending note-progression of the chant), and second, by turning our eyes
backwards in time, to Roman antiquity. Both of these feelings are subtly and powerfully emphasized with
a distant, deep, and barely audible drum.

I was left to my own devices

Many days fell away with nothing to show
And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above

The scene-setting here is epic, almost biblical. Walls tumbling down, death from above… it’s literal, in
reference to the city of Pomeii, but are iconic in a way that seems timeless and perhaps symbolic. One
can feel as though one’s own, personal “walls are crumbling,” or that some darkness is coming from
above. This more metaphorical interpretation is valuable because the emotional power of image of one’s
beloved city collapsing around you is intensely personal. Most people can connect with that feeling of
anguish, of powerlessness in the face of loss and destruction, not merely by empathy, but by connection
with similar experiences in their own lives.

But if you close your eyes

Does it almost feel like nothing’s changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?

For anyone who has suffered serious loss, that first pair of lines — “But if you close your eyes // does it
almost feel like nothing’s changed at all?” — is incredibly emotionally intense, because it taps into
what Elisabeth Kübler-Ross referred to as “denial” in the normal response-cycle to grief. We try to
pretend that what just happened didn’t actually happen, that we’re just dreaming, and that perhaps if we
just close our eyes and open them again, our loss might evaporate.