Copernicus

With lyrics such as "then you cut out all the letters that make up this note" and "I won't, I won't give up, until I find you," this is plainly about a kidnapping. Lyrically, Cedric Bixler-Zavala employed "disappearance" as a loose theme for Octahedron, inspired by the culture of kidnapping that has infected the duo's home town of El Paso and across the border in Mexico. In particular Bixler-Zavala had in mind the disappearance of two friends from El Paso, Tarzan and Pat. He explained to I Like Music: "Lyrically, I wanted to incorporate elements of traditional songs. So that it would sound like our world had these handed down, traditional songs that were to do with real random vanishings and kidnappings. That is a big part of Latin culture. People get kidnapped all the time. I wanted to cover everything. Right from the exhilarating feeling you get when you put the ransom note down, the adrenaline rush when you realize a loved one has been taken from you, followed by that bleak, dismal area of not knowing what to do. Especially if you don't come from money. We had two friends that we knew from Texas who just randomly vanished. We've never known whether they just took off or if they met foul play. I found it an interesting subject matter to tackle. I wanted the lyrics to instill that bleak feeling you can get from living somewhere like El Paso. Even though I haven't lived at home for ages, it's still with me. The stories that come from across the border still hit home really hard. I just wanted to have a soundtrack for that really."

This was how the San Antonio Express April 13, 1993 reported the disappearance of Tarzan and Pat: "A search resumed Monday for two El Paso boaters missing at Elephant Butte Lake. Patrick Shied, 18, and Tarzan Arguillez, 19, were reported missing about 3:30 p.m. Saturday. Maj. Frank Taylor, state police spokesman in Santa Fe, said searchers have found a rowboat the two had taken to Jet Boat Cove. Only a life jacket was on board."

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was the Polish astronomer who put forth the theory that the Earth and the planets of the solar system revolved around the sun. Bixler-Zavala's lyrics are often very abstract and it is difficult to decipher why this song was titled after the Pole.