One of my favourite lines in Higher is "Cause I look for scarlet and you look for ultraviolet."
The whole song is filled with these sorts of juxtapositions: "Fire" and "dry as bone", "Melody" and "silence" and "Danger" and "long way from home". However, as I said, this one is by far my favourite.
Of course you have the understanding that it's simply that; two juxtapositions that show the differences between Vessel and whoever he's talking about, but I wanna dive a little deeper.
Ultraviolet is obviously on the EM wave/light spectrum with a wavelength of around 10(-8)m, and is not visible to the human eye (hence its use of revealing things left unseen with fluorescence). You probably know of it because it's mainly used in crime scenes to discover bloodstains or other bodily fluids. The person looking for ultraviolet is looking for old wounds. Old blood long dried that they can trace back up to a scar they can pry open.
Plus, phonetically, Ultraviolet is similar to 'violence'.
With scarlet, outside of being a symbol for violence, blood, anger and love, can be traced to Infrared, which is also on the EM wave/light spectrum. Infrared doesn't have a colour, but will make things with heat appear scarlet. While they search for old wounds and things unseen to pry and pick apart, Vessel looks for affection and a warm body to attach himself to.
While the other lyrics are complete opposites, crackling fire to a feild waiting for the rains, melodies to calming silence, these two link. They're different and they're bad for eachother, but undeniably they click.
He is a danger, burning scarlet dripping from an open wound, and they, you, are a long way from home. From familiarity. And they are certainly in their right mind to keep the burning fire out of their home.
But the fire is warm, and he's looking for something that'll hold him and show him love anyways.
(Sorry for the extremely low res, did not know how to get around that one).
You know what I think this is? I think this is an Ed-and-Stede-have -A-Problem-with-something kind of scenario. Something that only Anne and Mary can help them with.
Problem is, Ed and Stede aren't on very good speaking terms yet, they are still very much working together though. So we have Ed sorting how they are going to ask it and he goes "Okay here's the plan I will go there, you'll stay here, shut the fuck up, don't let them see you and pretend you don't exist while I go talk to them, got that?" because Ed needs to look cool and all Blackbeardy for whatever he has in mind to work. Of course, the topic of conversation tips toward what happened to Ed, or how they heard he was hanging out with a rich dork or smth, and Stede - thinking he's the sole proprietor of some utterly Relevant information to the conversation - chimes in (He's not a dork and not even rich anymore!).
Ed, with reason, gets fucking pissed and replies to him on instintic. He regrets it immediately though, and tries to play it off and pretend and the doesn't know him.
(Look at Ed's face!!!! He looks fucking baflled. He's like "THe fucking NERVE of this guy" but also "No nope, totally don't know him, who even is he? No one important, I can tell you that bit")
That's when we get the "Edward..." and that's also how Mary and Anne guess that they know each other. Maybe from there the plan becomes to play their relationship up a bit, I don't know, they DO get invited to dinner though (double date!!!!!).
the transition of higher with vessel screaming and growling “the debt that i owe” to the whimsical fairy forest ass start of take aim is very funny to me