Heat death is one possible ultimate end to the universe, one in which all energy has been expended. All matter has been swallowed up by black holes, and the black holes themselves have disintegrated. Life and motion are impossible. Only darkness and emptiness remain. Whether this is bleak nihilism, hilarious comedy, or an exciting prospect depends mostly upon one's perspective.

It is also the working title for the album I'm making. Why? Well, there are several reasons. The main one, as with most things, is that it just kind of came into my head and I liked it. The other reasons are more like rationalizations for that. First, there is the grand cosmic nature of the idea. I tend to like grand cosmic ideas. But I think, more deeply, there is the point that I touched on above that one can have different kinds of reactions to it based on one's perspective. The first time I ever came across it as a concept, it was given in a very positive light as if it were some great thing to look forward to. Not that this was the intent of the speaker; he was obviously just excited about the science of it. But here was something that most people would find absolutely grim and discouraging - something that would make a lot of people say, "Well, what's the point of anything, then?" - and he was excited about it.

Personally, it's such a distant future that I don't really have a lot of emotional investment in it. I would probably be closest to the "hilarious comedy" opinion of the ones I presented above. I tend to think that life is basically a big joke, and either you are laughing at the joke or it is on you. The idea of all these people (myself included) taking their lives and actions seriously, going and doing dutiful things and all that other stuff we do, only to have nothing ever come of it, has an element of comedy to it.

I think that there is some similarity between the way heat death comes across as a concept and the way my music - or at least the lyrical ideas within it - does. Take "Existential Lullaby" for example. I kind of marvel at the cycle of life and death, how life necessitates death and so forth. But I think that for most people, it comes across as a kind of grim idea, this concept that one can be motivated to bring death to others out of a fear for one's own life. I remember one person's comment to me after hearing it, a long time ago, was, "I'll never look at chicken the same way again." Had they never thought about the idea that the chicken they are eating is something that was killed for their pleasure? Did that disgust them now?

Since I think a lot of what I write walks along that same sort of uncomfortable line, I thought Heat Death would make a good album title.