Coming Soon!
Ghost Town
Meltberry
universe
(overview)
characters
Insomniacs - People who never sleep and so they live their life in a hallucinatory state unable to differentiate between reality and the surreal.
They’re able to see ghosts but not understand them.
‘Ghosts in my Room’ and ‘Bedroom Eyes’ are sung from this perspective.
Sleepwalkers - Insomniacs who fugue/have ‘blacked out’ and aren’t conscious of their actions.
‘Sleepwalker’ and 'Wanderlust' is sung from this perspective.
Ghosts - Commonly referred to a night kids/graveyard kids…etc. They are soulless entities (because they died as ‘sleepwalkers’) that roam the earth often messing around and causing trouble. These characters cannot feel love.
‘Malibu Daydream’ is sung from this perspective.
Angels - Immortal beings who have passed away but in this universe there is a lot of fluidity between an angel and a devil. A ghost can become an angel by making a ‘deal with a devil’ (Your entire existence including memories of you are erased if you make such deals but a ghost wouldn’t know this. All they know is it’s something you shouldn’t do.)
‘Angelic’ is sung from this perspective.
Devils - If a sleepwalker has a surplus of negative energy, they don’t become a ghost when they die. Instead they become a devil. These are in extreme and rare cases for example if they lose someone they care about or other traumatic experiences. Devil's are all knowing, all powerful creatures who can manipulate people's lives however they want and are the only characters in this story that have true free will (although they are unhappy). Decisions amongst devils are thought of as simply a game.
'Playtime' is sung from this perspective.
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song meanings
GHOSTS IN MY ROOM ♥︎
This song is told from the perspective of an insomniac. The entirety of this song describes the surreal somewhat dystopian feeling of being an insomniac. They no longer can differentiate between dreams, hallucinations and real life. In Ghosts in My Room, the insomniac actually talks to the ghost in her room but doesn’t get any response in the song.
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SLEEPWALKER ♥︎
In this song MEIKA Hime is an Insomniac and she is having a conversation with herself whilst being in the sleepwalker state. There are many mentions of lights in this song which usually refer to lucidity as sleepwalkers are unaware of their surroundings.
The first verse is an overview of what is going on. “the lighting leaks and seeps throughout our abyss” describes the fact that they are barely conscious and don’t know what’s going on - light referencing clarity whereas the abyss is her oblivious state of mind.
“Keep the lights on, keep your mind sharp.” The first pre-chorus is a message about the stage before blacking out. Keeping the lights on and mind sharp will keep you from losing yourself.
In the second pre-chorus she says “Turn the lights off, close your eyes shut.” in this line she is telling herself to give into the fugue.
“Hush hush baby you’re a deer in the headlights.” A deer in the headlights refers to paralysation in that she isn’t able to consciously move. “Hush hush honey I’m a night walker, crawling through twilight.” The sleepwalker POV refers to herself as a nightwalker as she maintains autonomy.
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WANDERLUST ♥︎
This song describes two insomniacs who decide to succumb to the sleepwalker state in order to rest. The first voice (Miku) in this song tries to convince the second character (Gumi) to blackout with her and "sleepwalk together". However, as becoming a sleepwalker is a temporary state that may result in death and becoming a ghost, the first character is optimistic that nothing bad will happen.
By the second chorus, the first voice feels like she's "lost her lover" but can't know for sure as sleepwalkers are not in a conscious state and are unaware of their surroundings which makes it likely that they will die from various accidents.
The bridge explains how the second character has become a ghost which is then featured in the songs; Bedroom Eyes and Crocodile Tears whom the main character (DEX) is singing about.
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BEDROOM EYES ♥︎
The premise of this song is very similar to Ghosts in My Room however, this insomniac falls in love with the ghost he sees in his room. For him, the experience is less terrifying and more enchanting. I sort of wanted to show that not all insomniacs experience life in the same way.
The second part of the chorus consists of ‘vocal chops’ the phrase he sings is unintelligible in the song but what i had written was:
“Baby help me,
I think I’m going crazy.
Oh no, did I fall for an ethereal being?
Oh no, did I fall for an ethereal being?”
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CROCODILE TEARS ♥︎
This song is a follow up from Bedroom Eyes. This character is completely infatuated with a ghost that he meets, although it’s probably somewhat self-destructive. He also talks about wanting to ‘let go’, meaning becoming a ghost for the sake of this deluded love. However, while ghosts can show empathy for others they don't feel love and therefore their relationship is entirely one-sided.
In the chorus, the line ‘you’re a sight for sore eyes’ is a double entendre. The idiomatic expression meaning ‘you’re so amazing it’s unreal’ but also in the sense that his eyes are literally sore from not sleeping and seeing ghosts (as he is an insomniac).
The art in the video features a few songs from this album; Angelic, Bedroom Eyes, Sleepwalker, and Malibu Daydream as well as the album title itself.
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PLAYTIME ♥︎
Welcome to the Devil perspective. Playtime is a follow up from the song Sleepwalker and portrays the fate of a sleepwalker who had experienced some form of longterm pain during their time in the Ghost Town. Whilst there are multiple devils, Hime is the only one who's story is explored in this universe.
Hime's character goes back and forth reflecting on her life as an insomniac (+ her relationships) and her experience as a devil. Devils are the most powerful character types in this universe and can basically 'play god' so there are a lot of card game references in the song. Although usually they don't mess with insomniacs, Hime looks back on her early days as a devil when she contemplates getting some sort of revenge on the person who hurt her (but she never acted on it). The first half of the chorus alludes to the fact that people's memories are wiped of insomniacs who become devils. In the second half, Hime is asking herself how she became this way and wonders if her own fate was rigged. But ultimately it no longer matters to her because she's now the one in control even though she is still affected by things that happened to her in her past.
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ANGELIC ♥︎
Sung from the perspective of a Ghost who wants to and in the end becomes an Angel. It starts out speaking as a Ghost in verses 1 and 2.
Each chorus varies slightly. “I made a deal with the devil / To bump me up a level”. Bumping up a level refers to the transition from Ghost to Angel. She asks to become an angel but by the second repeat realises she doesn’t want to be stuck in heaven.
The second chorus she asks to go return to earth and go back to being a Ghost and she’s “like a broken record” because she keeps asking. “I made a deal with angel to bump me up a level.”
By the 3rd chorus she’s given up asking to go back. Instead she begins to work on ‘dealing like a devil’.
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MALIBU DAYDREAM ♥︎
This is sung from the perspective of a ghost which references the fate of the angel from Angelic (Ruby).
The first verse is giving a feel for the experience of the Ghosts since this is the first song from this perspective. In most songs they’re generally considered to be misfits or troublemakers.
There’s one sided conversation in the pre-chorus between the two Ghosts, one of which is about to make a deal with a devil (reference to Angelic).
The chorus describes her fate which was never truly addressed in Angelic but from the POV of the Ghost. “She didn’t see the knife in her back. She only felt her wings start to snap” refers to backstabbing in the sense that she was betrayed after becoming an angel. “Where did her closeted skeletons go? Earth was not her home, is not her home”. This alludes to the expression ‘skeletons in the closet’ meaning secrets. Her secrets are gone and she didn’t live on earth, no one remembers her.
(The two characters in the background of the art are Dex and myself)