“The Whale Song” is not about whales, but is more about wails, its “the wail song.” Isaac’s guitars wails in pain, and the lyric’s are mournful of the past and regret; how the narrator was unable to find a way out. The extensive lyrical repetition and rephrasing is reflective of the obsession we have over regret especially when we’ve failed ourselves or others.

The guitar soloing wails and hits tones that are uncomfortable to listen to, and many people might find this a hard piece to listen to. This is good as it reflects someone wailing out in pain, which can make people cringe is discomfort. So instead of trying to hears whale sounds think of wails and screams.

Then again this song also could be interpreted to be about whales contrary to the above, which would make sense of some of the lyrics. Like this is about a whale hunt, “I’m rising up, wish I was sinking down” could be about how a whale would rather be sinking back into the ocean than being pulled up by whalers or perhaps to be delivered to Sea World. Then the narrator is the scout of a pod of whales and feels responsible for leading his group into danger.

The two lyrical interpretations as either about being about human suffering or whales is blurred as the lyrics are not direct. This could be Isaac saying the way we interpret this song is indicative of who we are. Like if the line “I’m rising up, wish I was sinking down” is confusing from a human perspective but makes sense to a whale’s then a listener’s assumption about the identity of the narrator will lead to different conclusions. Is this song narrated by a clever human wordsmith “the wail song” or is meant to be from an alien perspective of another species “the whale song”. There isn’t an explicit answer in the lyrics, Brock shows our difficulty in knowing the other.

Do we think whales can have complex emotions and thoughts like a human narrator? Are these lyrics only anthropomorphizing whales as a way to express Isaac’s concern over environmentalism when in fact he doesn’t know what whales think about or feel?