THE RIBBON | Alan Wake 2 Song feat. Cami-Cat!

In the long awaited Alan Wake 2, Remedy take us back to the world of Bright Falls, Cauldron Lake and the Dark Place that lies deep within it. Since the events of the first game, Alan, a renowned writer, has been lost for 13 years, trapped by the Dark Presence in a twisted world built from his own words deep beneath the shores of Cauldron Lake. Stuck in an endless, undying loop he must find a way to write an ending and his escape from a world that feeds on his own creativity and turns it against him.
Meanwhile, on the surface, new character to the series Saga Anderson has been assigned to solve a string of terrible, ritualistic murders in the town of Bright Falls and soon discovers that there may be a connection to a famous writer who vanished from the town 13 years ago…

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It’s been a little while, huh? But I’m back! A heady mix of delays beyond my control, international travel (for both pleasure AND some exciting international projects!) and good old fashioned mental health lead to a totally unplanned span between new songs here on the channel!

I’ve been so excited to release this for the longest time! Way back in 2020 when I released Slide Into the Void for Remedy’s ‘Control’ (one of my favourite games in recent memory) they reached out to me and expressed an interest in maybe working together in future. So when Alan Wake 2 was announced I immediately reached out in kind. A song touching on themes of creator vs creation and artistic legacy whilst also occupying the fantastically weird world of the Remedyverse? Sign me up!

What followed was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, video production I’ve yet attempted! Four solid days of shooting, the largest set we’ve ever built based on Remedy’s own schematics for the version built for the game’s live action sequences.
Not only that but Remedy were kind enough to send me multiple props and costume pieces that were used when filming for the actual game! The cultist costumes, their masks, Saga’s unique sweater, the books, the desk lamp, all the 100% genuine props you’ll see in game!
Together Remedy and Epic have been so fantastic to work with, providing in-depth access and references for the game way ahead of release so I was able to research and write, and placing incredible faith in my crazy ideas. Projects on this scale are both a joy and a nightmare to pull together and I couldn’t have done it without their support!

But not just them! Yet again I am blessed to be able to thank my incredible team for coming together and making this happen. As always thank you to the incredible Lizzy, my editor and production coordinator, Paul, my DOP and cinematographer and Nick, set builder extraordinaire. As well as new team member Benedict who has become invaluable as a prop and costume fabricator over the last few projects.
I’d like to thank my good friend Storm for taking on the role of Saga! Storm and I go way back and I’m so happy to finally be able to bring her on for a project!
And another newcomer to the channel, my incredibly talented sister, Caitlin, carpenter extraordinaire! Those stunning chalk boards? Made from scratch by her according to Remedy’s blueprints. I’m thrilled to be able to work with her and I hope to do so much more in future!

Thanks for sticking with me whilst I was away, everyone! I'll be back again soon, there are a LOT of things on the way!

#alanwake #alanwake2 #ad

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Check out the full Stupendium originals playlist for all of my original songs!

THE STUPENDIUM ON SPOTIFY:

THE STUPENDIUM ON iTUNES:

Lyrics and vocals by The Stupendium
Video by The Stupendium and Lizzy CJ
Production Coordinator: Lizzy CJ
Guest vocals by @Cami-Cat
Costume and prop design by Benedict Marshall: @LawlessMarshall
Cast:
@Shwabadi as Cult of the Tree member
@LawlessMarshall as Cult of the Tree member and taken townsfolk
Set fabrication: Nick J. Henderson
Set fabrication assistant: Benedict Marshall
Master carpenter: Caitlin H
Track produced by @OxygenBeats

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The Stupendium is a musician, animator and content creator, creating weird, wonderful and usually incredibly nerdy songs and animations. Join them on their journey to obscure, niche internet stardom! They have some pretty decent videos, wonderful facial hair and a great sense of discomfort describing themself in the third person.

[TheStupendium]

LYRICS:

INTRODUCTION:
At the edge of understanding, the border of the known
The breaking point of reason, where logic is dethroned
Where sense is defenseless and festers on the bone
One writer fights a cycle, trying to write a way back home
In Night Springs
Tonight’s episode
‘The Ribbon’

VERSE 1:
We open, our protagonist, brash, pragmatic, fantasist
Trapped within a cabin, frantic, grappling with a manuscript
Passionately grasping for a catalyst but the syntax isn’t landing
Grabs the draft out from the carriage and abandons it
He doesn’t really know quite what he’s writing, but he has to
Sits enraptured in the flow of what he’s typing
Cramping wrists, his hands in fits
The hammers slam the characters
They writhe and dance and twist
But never seem to parse more than ‘surviving’
As the grammar shifts
A bulb, it flickers for a moment
Darkness falls for just a second
But it lingers, forms unspoken
Hark the call, the shadows beckon
Swallowed dawn, still all-consuming
Every corner lurking, looming
Hear the ichor hymns so soothing
As the screaming silence deafens
Another page, a hurried scrawl
A night replays, a dozen more
Another failed and crumpled ball
Of ‘almost, maybe’ on the floor
Framed within the maze within the print
His escape from all this hinges
On which page becomes the door

CHORUS 1:
Existence is cast in the answers we write
To riddles in chapters that can’t be defined
Pigment of black and the parchment of white
The figments they track through the dark to the light
The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave
The fragments of me that they trap in between
We all have to write on the pages we’re given
But you can’t live life on both sides of the ribbon
Tied to the ribbon
Legacy
It is the dream of any creative to leave their mark, indelible, on the world around them
Which side of the ribbon?
But be careful what marks such an obsession might leave on you

VERSE 2:
Another chapter opens
But our hero isn’t sure
If the pattern is unbroken
Has he penned this page before?
Is he writing what he’s lived
Or now reliving what he’s written?
Every end with failed beginnings
Cast adrift within the lore
On a lake that turned to ocean
Drowning under weight of legacy
When any sentence could be sentenced
As the last they ever see
Our pages pass relentless
Count or not, there is no remedy
And so, he sits again
Attempts to pen pre-emptive threnody
Amorphous in memoriam
In effigy uncertain
Unsure if all this really is himself
At least, a version?
But these whispers grip the narrative
Treat sense with bleak aversion
Tendrils bend and break immersion
Twisting cursive through recursion
His words branch out in paths
Too dark to follow through trees
With pages piled so high
He’s lost the forest for leaves
No saying what’s to believe
It doesn’t want him to leave
And so these pages end up bound
To make the story repeat

BRIDGE:
Wake up, day starts as the night falls
See what dark part of your mind calls
You can’t fight what you write
And you write what we like
Find the light, you might see how the bright fall
YOU’LL NEED THE PROPER TOOLS
TO GET A PROPER SERVICE
YOU WON’T BELIEVE THE THINGS THAT HIDE
RIGHT THERE BENEATH THE SURFACE
Hopelessly floating through tomes
With no way of knowing
If you are composing or you’re just quoting
The prose you’re sewing
Ergo ergodic, eroding your ego
Going for broke but just broken
NO FIXER-UPPER
LIKE THE COFFEE POT A FLOWIN’
A hero’s journey burdened
By the characters deployed
When all your thousand faces
Are so narratively void
Were the adjectives employed
Worth the marriage you destroyed?
YOU KNOW HUNTING IS A HOBBY
THE WHOLE FAMILY CAN ENJOY

SAGA BRIDGE:
Deep in the dark and winding eaves of your mind
Read from a Saga, blind but reaching in kind
Leads down a path where leaves and secrets entwine
Even apart, two heroes, one storyline
Small town - And I know the narrative conventions
Establishing shots in the dark
A plot with an arc beyond all comprehension
I’ll be the first person to admit
The present is tense and
Not sure if I’ll get these words to fit
The presence descending
I hear it calling my name
I feel me falling away
Chasing these pages but questioning my agency
Tasked with a story to break
I hear it calling my name
I feel me falling away
Am I a character? Actor? A passenger?
Cast from the shores of a lake?

CHORUS 2:
Existence is cast in the answers we write
To riddles in chapters that can’t be defined
Pigment of black and the parchment of white
The figments they track through the dark to the light
The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave
The fragments of me that they trap in between
We all have to write on the pages we’re given
But you can’t live life on both sides of the ribbon
Tied to the ribbon
Creativity
It is the impetus of any artist to pour themselves into their work
Which side of the ribbon?
But pour too much and you might not like what you find at the bottom of the bottle

VERSE 3:
Our hero, once again attempts to find the words he lacks
And peers between the lines to see the lines observing back
A scratch all too familiar and - oh! - The surface cracks
What’s the matter, Alan? We can’t both be worthless hacks
Now, I know what you’re thinking
This is crazy! Oh, he can’t exist!
You could have made a killing
Just embraced a little masochist
‘Stead you’re dried up
Trying to earn a living from a manuscript
But have you tried for just one second
Living as the man you script?
I’m the parts you were ashamed of
I’m the parts you tried to fight
I’m the parts you told yourself
Didn’t keep you awake at night
I’m the part of you that’s better
You just can’t concede I’m right
So, you poured me into pages
Then I guess I’m just your type
You meld work with your self-worth
But tell me, what does that sell for?
And was the journey through hell worth
How short you fell on the bell curve?
Then one day they’ll forget you, ooh!
But I’ve stories to tell first
‘Cause I’m that face that you gave them to be you
And baby, I’m well versed
What am I
When you’re already a shadow of yourself?
Tell me who would look at this
And then take that down off the shelf?
You had it, buddy! All of it!
The fame, the glam, the wealth
But what’s it worth if you won’t play
The hand the round has dealt?
‘Nightmares don’t use logic’
Yeah, we know that you can read
Sat there hoping for the credits
But it’s me who’s supposed to lead
All that hokum in your head
But where’s the quote to make you see?
That perhaps YOU’RE antithetical
To the poetry of ME!

CHORUS 3:
Existence is cast in the answers we write
To riddles in chapters that can’t be defined
Pigment of black and the parchment of white
The figments they track through the dark to the light
The hammers and keys and the patterns they weave
The fragments of me that they trap in between
We all have to write on the pages we’re given
But you can’t live life on both sides of the ribbon
Tied to the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon
Which side of the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon, the ribbon?

OUTRO:
Another chapter ended
But not an arc adjourned
A narrative repeating
For a plot he can’t discern
He’s writing a Departure
But he’s still yet to learn
That every line he starts
Must always end at the Return

And there you have it
A vicious cycle scored by the hammer of keys and the ring of the typewriter
A writer cursed to relive his own words, trapped in a world of his own making
A novel concept
Everyone likes to get lost in a good book
But be careful what you read
In Night Springs

[FloridaMan]

The callback to "slide into the void" with the "Night Spring" series in game was genius

[blujayvox]

"Am I a character? Actor? A passenger? Cast from the shores of a lake?"
Absolutely GENIUS. On one side, cast from the shores of Cauldron Lake, where the Dark Place is. But also, Sam Lake, the writer of both Alan Wake games, who literally "cast" all the characters into existence.

[Cami-Cat]

YESSS I'm so glad that this is out now! Thanks so so much again for having me, this was INSANE

[graysongoal]

Having recently finished The Final Draft, the commenter searched for more AW2 content and was led to The Stupendium for the first time. Always having loved rap, he watched with glee, giddy over the references and the details in the scenes. Quickly, he clicked both 'like' and 'subscribe, ' excited to see what new treasures he'd find.

[HeisenbergFam]

This is ultimate proof Stupendium is the embodiment of quality over quantity

[danbull]

i am watching your alan wake song
i like the frantic anxious raps
this song is not making me feel relaxed
is it bad that my thought is "i wish i was as productive a writer as alan wake"
i dont think thats the message i am supposed to take away haha
well done sir/madam
i think this will be a slow burn success

[bennydoesthings]

The "Slide Into the Void" rip got me almost immediately ready for this absolute adventure of a song. Between "Ergo ergodic, eroding your ego", the flip on manuscript, and "just your type", the wordplay was out in full force. Great song as always

[korbinslookingglass]

Stupes wasn't lying about the production quality! Did you know to prepare for this song, Stupes trapped themself in the WRITER TORTURE DIMENSION so they can perfectly convey the feeling of being trapped in the WRITER TORTURE DIMENSION!! Kudos to the Stupendium!

[doctorjackson]

"The song in front of the listener would leave them shaken as it makes them remember the slow realization that madness is eternal and never ending. A perfect loop, needing to be rewritten"

[kingofsoy]

Out of all of the lines, the one I feel has the most impact to me is the simple "What's the matter, Alan? We can't both be worthless hacks". The symbolism aside, the line pulls you in, as this whole time, even in Saga's section, there have been a ton of long technical words, poetic structures, and a very distinct feel from it all. Then suddenly it's gone, not in a new section but in a reveal of an Alan, you're not used to, simpler, the creation not the creator. Another shocking departure that pulls is that this is the first use in the song of addressing anyone by name, and the first instance of "We". Really good job of setting up the dichotomy in one line.

[tomasmurphy]

"But he's let to learn that every line he starts must end at the return" - holy hell, Stupes, the *delivery* of that line was impeccable. Cami-Cat did an excellent job (as always) on the chorus, and there were some killer bars in this one. Excellent job.

[xaver]

"His escape from all this hinges on which page becomes the door" I JUST got that

[moxie]

Somehow, I've never heard of Alan Wake in full until now. A writer housed in a prison of his own words? That sounds incredible! Thank you, Stupendium, for putting this on my radar

[ZariesTheHealadin]

The viewer returned to the song yet again, unsure if he'd already left a comment once before. He only knew he hoped for more songs from the Stupendium - particularly in tandem with Cami-Cat - when further games from this company, remake or otherwise, were released. Then, pleased with his new comment, he posted it and the viewer returned to the song yet again...

[SecondaryLoop]

GOD DAMN. The way the voice switches character to character, sometimes the author and the narrator, it just gives me chills. Great job!

[sourwitch]

I love the line "a novel concept" so much. Makes me smile every time. The way it's both the explanation of what he's trapped in, and praise for the hypothetical TV episode we just watched AND the game. It's great. Such simple phrasing with several angles.

[Finzombie]

I'm going to choose to believe that the line at 2:45 is not only a clever nod to sheets of paper being called 'leaves', but considering the set dressing of being surrounded and trapped by unnervingly formatted pages, it's also a reference to hit novel House of Leaves. What an excellent reference, Stupes! You've done it again!

[betterlooking]

I’m so enthralled and amazed at the way stupes seems to effortlessly write in character. That’s not a credit I’d give a lot of nerdcore creators, often write songs About Things, not As People. Each song feels like it’s genuinely coming from the character they’re playing, not Stupes in a costume doing a bit. I can only imagine the amount of research, rewrites, and dedication it takes to not just write a song about something but take a dip into a character’s mind and say it in their voice.

[NerdRaps_]

Oh my Goodness Stupes. This is amazing. The sets, the editing, Jazzy's performance. This is by far the most cinematic video you've ever done. Bravo