HBO knows how to do one hell of an intro. Perhaps you woke up this morning with ill intents. Or maybe your family is going to war and you need something a little more subtly powerful. The people behind these shows know how to dig their claws into your brain before a single frame of footage is shown. Coupled with the powerful imagery of the series, they set the tone for what you’re in for.

Then True Detective came along. I’ll admit for several weeks I was spending more time trying to decipher the imagery in the introduction. The twangy vibe it gave was perfect for the series, but I didn’t think much about the lyrics. Let’s take a look.

From the dusty mesa,

Her looming shadow grows,

Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote.

A man is wandering the desert, searching far and wide until he finds the cactus flower he’s looking for. According to the band, the blooming flower of this particular cactus is an extremely rare sight, one that can only be seen every 10,000 years or so. Also according to the band, upon seeing this flower bloom, the viewer also goes insane.

This is most likely a reference to the selenicereus grandiflorus flower, which will only bloom at night once every 2 to 4 years. This beautiful flower, the real one, not the mythic one of the song, then wilts within a few hours of blooming.

The fleeting nature of this flower, especially amongst the toxic plants (creosote is a very poisonous chemical derived from the tar of some plants) is a reflection of humanity searching for meaning amongst a bitter and cruel world. Rust talks about the futile nature of this ideal at length. The obsession with something as vague as meaning drives us as a species, but is ultimately futile in his opinion.

She twines her spines up slowly,

Towards the boiling sun,

And when I touched her skin,

My fingers ran with blood.

After so much time searching and the desert, the man finds the item of his obsession. He reaches for it, caresses the skin, but the spines bite back, rending his hands. This is the moment his obsession overtakes him.

In the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,

I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom.

A strange hunger haunted me, the looming shadows danced.

I fell down to the thorny brush and felt a trembling hand.

This verse is another victim of the cactus, a young woman. The strange obsession has overtaken her as well, driving her to those same desert wastes to find the night flower. When she finds the flower, she also finds the man entwined in the thorny vines around it.

I am reminded of Dora Lange. A young woman, lost, beaten, raped, and murdered. Before that, we get glimpses of her obsession with the Yellow King. She was drawn in, most likely during her time at the Tuttle’s rural school. She was then indoctrinated, she sought the Yellow King. When the night settled and she finally found him, she was stripped bare and left below a gnarled tree.

When the last light warms the rocks,

And the rattlesnakes unfold,

Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones.

Sunset spreads across the desert. The snakes, coiling under rocks and stones to maintain their body temperature, uncoil and go to hunt at night. When the flower blooms, it claims its victims, their bodies being claimed by the creatures of the desert.

And rise with me forever,

Across the silent sand,

And the stars will be your eyes,

And the wind will be my hands.

These two have become part of the desert. Their souls were lost to the bloom, their bodies to the ravages of the barrens. Whatever force or obsession that brought them so far has claimed them, making them part of itself.

This last stanza really makes it perfect for True Detective. Time is a flat circle, if we recall the words of Reggie Ledoux. These lost souls will rise in the desert forever, and the hunger will strike another and drag them to the desert. Under a night of black stars, they are brought to Carcosa. People pulled to terrible ends, over and again, by men existing outside of the rational and the sane.

Both the show and the song are about maddening obsession. For the wanderers, it is putting their souls at hazard to see the desert bloom. Rust is willing to put his life on the line to solve the mystery of the Yellow King. He stops sleeping, he becomes other people (running with the biker gang), and even when he isn’t a detective anymore he still devotes his life to the case. I’m just hoping it won’t end quite so badly for him.

What are your thoughts on the intro? Hit up the comments section and let us know.

—

Tony Southcotte is an odd mix of computer tech, writer, plumber, wonderjunkie, and strange duck. He co-hosts the Human Echoes Podcast . You can find him on Twitter.