EPIC: The Musical (The Analysis)

FULL SPEED AHEAD

🎶Intro🎶

The first thing we hear is waves: Odysseus and his crew are on sea, sailing away from Troy and back to Ithaca.

We also hear guitar again, AKA Ody

🎶Six hundred men,
Six hundred men under my command🎶

The lyrics are supported by a guitar playing the melody. I think the nylon guitar (emotional ody!) supporting the lines where Odysseus sings about his crew shows us he cares about his men.

🎶With only one goal in mind:
Make it back alive to our homeland
Six hundred men
Six hundred miles of open sea
But the problem's not the distance
It's what lies in between.🎶

Great comparison of miles and open sea, and yea I don't really know what I can say here except for 'what lies in between' points out the monsters and location is the problem rather than the distance, as some Achaeans made the journey back home quickly.

Also, I don't want to spoil too much but a certain second line does contain some uhm.. irony..

🎶And Ithaca's waiting Ithaca's waiting
My kingdom is waiting The kingdom's waiting
Penelope's waiting for me
So full speed ahead
Full speed ahead🎶

Second song with Penelope, no strings though. Probably for the orchestra, as strings wouldn't right now match the instruments.

Full speed ahead. The music and lyrics come back, you'll see when ;)

🎶Captain Eurylochus🎶

Ok funny thing, this lyric can be misheard as "Captain, you really cuss".

🎶Six hundred men
Six hundred men with big mouths to feed
And we've run out of supplies to eat
Curse the war, our food store's depleted🎶

New character: Eurylochus, the second in command. Because he cares about his crew, his lines are usually supported by the soldiers in the background.

Apart from that, yes, the food store's depleted. In the original FSA demo, the depleted food stores are never mentioned, but in the next (deleted) song, Ismarus, they go to the city well, Ismarus, to get food there. I'll elaborate more in the chapters about the 2 songs.

🎶Six hundred men
Six hundred reasons to take what we can
So captain what's the plan,
Captain what's the plan?🎶

More soldiers, Eurylochus is a bit in an aggressive mood, but he just cares about his soldiers so we'll let it slide.

🎶Watch where the birds fly Watch where the birds fly
They will lead us to land They will lead us to land
There we'll hunt for food my
Second in command
Now full speed ahead🎶

Odysseus is using his cunning mind again, coming up with a plan on the spot.

🎶We're up, we're off, and away we go
We're up, we're off, and away we go
Full speed ahead
We're up, we're off, and away we go🎶

Eurylochus + soldiers + Ody :)

I gotta say it's a really catchy melody

🎶Captain
Polites!🎶

I am not goin to say much but keep in mind Polites' first word is "Captain" >:)

Also Polites is the captain's best friend despite only being mentioned in the OG Odysseus like twice or sumn.

🎶Look! There in the distance
I see and island
I see a light that faintly glows
Maybe they're people
Lighting a fire
Maybe they'll share some food,
Who knows?🎶

Ahh, Polites, one of the brighter moments of EPIC. The music also changes, as the drum disappears.

Polites talks about a light. Welp I'll let you all guess what that is.

🎶Something feels off here,
I see fire but there's no smoke🎶

Odysseus is a smartass again/pos. Light+no smoke =\= fire

🎶I say we strike first,
We don't have time to wait
So let's raid the place and-
No.🎶

Eurylochus woke up and chose violence, fr. Anyways in Ismarus it was also Eurylochus warning Odysseus lethal force was inevitable.

🎶Polites gear up
You and I'll go ahead
You and I'll go ahead
We should try to find a way no one ends up dead🎶

Why am I only now realizing the plot point of this discussion is almost the same in Ismarus: People need food, Eury wants violence, Odysseus wants no deaths. In Ismarus however Polites wanted to try and find a way to play it safe, but here that isn't mentioned.

🎶We don't know what's ahead!
Give me til sunrise
And if we don't return
Then 600 men can make this whole place burn
Now full speed ahead🎶

Odysseus is being a good captain here: He finds a compromise Eurylochus, Polites and Ody himself can all agree on.

🎶Full speed ahead🎶

Okay lets take a moment to appreciate HOW BEAUTIFUL this harmony of Ody and the soldiers are.

Jay explained in a tiktok how this harmony was an accident: He recorded himself singing 'Full speed ahead' a bunch of times in different melodies to find one that was different from the ones from before. He accidentally unmuted all of the different vocals and what came out of that is now one of Jorge's favorite moments in FSA.

We're up, we're off, and away we go
We're up, we're off, and away we go
Full speed ahead
We're up, we're off, and away we go
We're up, we're off, and a-
Full speed ahead

Just some overlapping vocals, an amazing outro, mwah, I love this song. (I love all of 'em lol)