There is a certain type of phobia characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia called Capgras delusion, in which a person is constantly paranoid that their loved ones have been all replaced by identical impostors. Imagine for a moment a world where that fear was not the result of a mental disorder, but an ever-present reality – this is the world that we find ourselves thrust into with this classic work by Philip K. Dick. Our protagonist Spence Olham has been accused of not being who he thinks he is, but rather a dangerous alien weapon that has been programmed to infiltrate Earth and destroy it. When he tries to speak what he knows to be the truth, he is even told that this weapon would be programmed to have the same memories as Olham and not even know that it wasn’t human. Throughout this thrilling journey, Spence needs to prove that he is not the Impostor and that the whole situation is a result of what has been failed to be seen. But the chilling reality is that he doesn’t even know whether he really is who he thinks he is. 

The lyrics to our rendition start off as saying, “Between/The truth and what we see/There lies the casualty/Of what we’ve become.” Of what we’ve become – not just what has become of Olham, but what desperate times turn people in general into. And while in the end of this story Olham realizes who he really is and destroys the Earth along with himself, there is no denying that the humans in the story should have seen this coming. Blinded to the reality of it all – as in all of PKD’s war stories – mankind eventually destroys itself, whether by planetary nuclear war, intergalactic war, or in this case, the war within their very minds. And just as there is always a paranoia within the minds of mankind in this story that turns out to be true, maybe we should pay closer attention to the “Impostor” within our own minds, or in other words: what we become between the truth and what we see.