What is the sentence structure of these lyrics?

Question

I’m trying to understand the following lyrics: > Eine Stimme aus dem Licht > Fällt dem Himmel vom Gesicht How does that second line work, syntax-wise? “Falls the sky from the face” doesn‘t sound like a good translation. I guess it would make sense if *dem Himmel* and *vom Gesicht* were swapped, but I’m not sure how that helps.

Answer 1

You basically got it - it would be, a voice from (out of) the light falls off the face of the sky. Think of, mir fällt ein Stein vom Herzen - literally, a stone falling off of your heart, right? It's the same construction - so the dative (dem) Himmel is the thing which is losing an object, so to speak, and the von + dative (vom) Gesicht is the place where the object is falling off of, and the nominative (eine) Stimme is the subject, so it's the object doing the falling.

Hope this helps :)