Music / Second Person

Second Person was a London-based band consisting of singer/pianist Julia Johnson, producer/bassist Mark Maclaine, and drummer Alvaro Lopez. They formed in 2001 and announced their split in 2011.

Discography

• Chromatography (2004)
• Live at the Bedford (2006)
• The Elements (2007)
• Come to Dust (2011)

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Tropes:

• Added Alliterative Appeal: In "Wood":
  Are you my love, my landlord, my lawyer
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: In the music video for "Wood", when the girl and monkey first land in the dark cave, only their eyes can be seen. Then the eyes of a bunch of creatures appear around them. When the dragon shows up, its eyes are also the only part of it visible at first.
• The Darkness Gazes Back: In the music video for "Wood", when the girl and monkey find themselves in a dark cave, eyes belonging to unknown creatures appear in the darkness around them. As the girl and monkey make their way forward by the light of a match, another pair of eyes appears behind them, soon revealed to belong to the dragon living there.
• Elemental Motifs: The Elements is themed around elements, with each song being based around a different one: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. For the most part, the album describes the emotional arc of the singer through a relationship and its aftermath, with the elements serving as metaphors.
  • "Wood" is light on the elemental references, but does contain the line:
    But you don't see the wood for the trees
  • "Fire" uses the element's bright but destructive nature to describe a magnetic, Destructive Romance.
    But one of my addictions is
    I used to play with fire
    Do you / Do you have a light
    Do you have the time of day
    […]
    Oh so much phosphorescence
    We added spark to spark
    […]
    I engineered the chaos
    I burned the fortress down
  • "Earth" uses the element's association with death and burial.
    See their shoulders strain below the weight of the spades
    Stereo plays for a funeral
    […]
    I leave myself to the earth
    To the air
    To the ashes
    […]
    This is my early grave
  • "Metal" uses the element's hardness and toxicity to describe anger and bitterness, as well as using some reflection imagery and referring to alchemy.
    But when I'm full of heavy metal once again
    All the pride inside me would give him hell
    […]
    Heavy metal, well it gets inside
    No matter how decisively or nice you slice it
    It insinuates until the driest ice
    Has taken every synapse for its own devices
    Throat is coated with these frozen crystals
    Notes you hold are only broken whistles
    Slick as sequins are the icicles glistening
    I think his kisses were sick as strychnine
  • "Water" uses the placidity associated with its element to describe a state of acceptance and forgiveness.
    I stand on the stones and I stare at the waves
    And all of my anger runs red in the sea
    I have let go of all of my rage
    It's sailing, it's sailing away from me
• Siamese Twin Songs: On The Elements, the end of "Fire" leads directly into the beginning of "Earth", and "Metal" leads into "Water".

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