Otherside

this is a great song , and the fact the people can interpret it different ways showz its a real work of poetic art .. after reading some info etc I wish to give my idea:

~Waning~ adult themes - 18y only plz

"otherside" (1 word) = slang for afterlife/death

rhcp say its about their band member that died from drug overdose. the song is the wordz of that man Hillel Slovak from isreal .. talking about his life.. and addiction .

"How long how long will I slide" - passive .. let it slide = to put off or delay / to leave things as they are; to not change or disturb a situation. he isn't dead yet , he isn't cured .. survives passively .

"Separate my side" - he avoids a side of him , a side that want to use drugz all the time .

"I don't believe it's bad" - doing drugz / being a former drug addict isn't cuz he evil ..

"Slit my throat" "It's all I ever" - he iz depressed like 90% of people in the world , but he wont kill himself - I think he tell people - u can kill me in a brutal way , but using drugz is all I had in life - the words all addict say to people who criticize them .

"I heard your voice through a photograph" - the addiction is callin him in is head .

"I thought it up and brought up the past" - he tried to avoid that part/past , but he accidently remembered vividly the dark timez .

"Once you've gone you can never go back" - he understands he can never realy be cured , cuz even a simple photo or thinkin bout the past brings back the cravings and pain .

"I've got to take it on the other side" - take it on = to accept unpleasant events bravely and without complaining . he will take this curse with him all thru life .. bravely quietly .

"Centuries are what it meant to me" - this curse will haunt him for long time .. centuries even .. all people with addiction feel they curesed for eternity .

"A cemetery where I marry the sea" - he is stuck in a grave , his love is the sea = not a women , no happy family - only a giant desert of loneliness .

"Pour my life into a paper cup" - when in drug detoxification clinic , the man gets methadone in paper cups . he puts his entire life on the possibility that this treatment cures his suffering . from the net : "detox by methadone maintenance treatments were determined to be more cost-effective , but patients more likely to remain in treatment ."

"The ashtray's full and I'm spillin' my guts" - he is in the clinic , he burns thru alot of ciggarets talkin . to spill guts = to tell secret or personal information . he is telling his story.

"She wants to know am I still a slut" - a female there insults him by asking if he is still a lowlife weakminded-beast , or does he feel like a man/gentelman now . slut =Slut or slattern is a term applied to an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. The term is generally pejorative and most often used as an insult, offensive term .

"I've got to take it on the other side" - he must fight thru insults and suffering till end .

"Scarlet starlet and she's in my bed" - scarlet starlet = a stunningly beautiful and promiscuous woman. a sexy female is in his bed , almost any man will lose his Judgment and inner strength .

"A candidate for a soul mate bled" - this is a female that might be his "true love", his soul-mate . but she is using drugs .. bled - when shooting drugs they usually pull out some blood into the syringe .

"Push the trigger and pull the thread" - he gave in , he uses the syringe to "shoot" the drugz , like its a gun to his head like in russian roulette . after the syringe is empty he removes a cloth/string/wire the is around arm .. allowing the drug to rush thru his body .

"I've got to take it on the other side" - he lost this fight , but he must keep fighting the war till he dead .

"Turn me on take me for a hard ride" - he yells the drug to take him thru the high and after it the painfull low he usually gets when doing the drug .

"Burn me out leave me on the other side" - he dont care if this kills him , he dares the drug to end his life and end the hell , but most times people survive usual drug use .

"I yell and tell it that It's not a friend I tear it down I tear it down And then it's born again" - the addiction doesnt leave him , the drug is a guy obsessed about the addict and wont leave him alone.

in the video u see a man who his defeated on the ground . he is taken to a hospital where the give him something to make him sleep out of pain .. but after that "cure" his fight just starts.

he is attacked by a hell beast .. he fights till he got no weapon , the a ladder lowers to take him out of hell , but needs to find his way out .

when he finally reaches a picture of a woman , his own mind attacks him . the shadow disarms the man , but he escapes again with a kiss from the picture .

he floats above the pain of the gray city .. only to be beaten down but a black crow . black crow is usually death .. but its also a trickster, manipulative, mischevious .

the crow makes him land , and then attacks the man until he is defeated again and back to the video starting point , where the cycle starts again