This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
I am the beat of your pulse
The computer word made flesh
We are one you and I
We are versions of the same
When you can see what I feel
Don't turn your back on me
Or you might find that your dreams
Are only program cards
Your mind is open for me
Open for intake of all propaganda
Your Eyes see now what to see
My eyes see only the programs you give me
I'll teach you to laugh and to cry
They're really the same you'll see
All of the why's in your life
Are under my control
Feed me more lines
I will try to tell you all I can
Before the light you must know what lies
Behind my screams
I can't tell you all I know
Am I the son that you've always been wanting
There's more to me than what shows
Are you my father
The one that was promised
Hush now, I'll give all you need to know
and pre-live your dreams for you
You're a good boy
Freedom belongs only to those
Without video screens
For eyes and mouth
You have no voice
To be heard my son
No one can hear when you're
Screaming in Digital
I'm not your slave
You can't control my emotions
No Father, please let me keep learning
Can't you see I'm human
Can't you tell
I'm not your slave
Oh Father no
Please don't keep me from dreaming
Oh can't someone hear
The computer word made flesh
We are one you and I
We are versions of the same
When you can see what I feel
Don't turn your back on me
Or you might find that your dreams
Are only program cards
Your mind is open for me
Open for intake of all propaganda
Your Eyes see now what to see
My eyes see only the programs you give me
I'll teach you to laugh and to cry
They're really the same you'll see
All of the why's in your life
Are under my control
Feed me more lines
I will try to tell you all I can
Before the light you must know what lies
Behind my screams
I can't tell you all I know
Am I the son that you've always been wanting
There's more to me than what shows
Are you my father
The one that was promised
Hush now, I'll give all you need to know
and pre-live your dreams for you
You're a good boy
Freedom belongs only to those
Without video screens
For eyes and mouth
You have no voice
To be heard my son
No one can hear when you're
Screaming in Digital
I'm not your slave
You can't control my emotions
No Father, please let me keep learning
Can't you see I'm human
Can't you tell
I'm not your slave
Oh Father no
Please don't keep me from dreaming
Oh can't someone hear
Lyrics submitted by Ice
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Wow I remember this song when I was growing up and really liked it alot, never thought that down the road when I have a son that it would make me think twice to the way I act towards him. To me this song is about someone who is REALLY strict on thier son and doesnt let him live his childhood, to me its a powerful song and makes me think twice when my son gets me angry, sometimes I forget about this though, but NEVER want to keep him from dreaming!!!
@musicdood nice though - and feel free to interpret as you wish - but IMO, this is pretty far off. This is about a computer who is trying to become human - the human son, metaphorically speaking, of his human creator.
@musicdood 100% - Parenting is very difficult. The simplest things can impact children much more than adults think.<br /> <br /> To Adam's comment though, this song is about an AI or robot (the computer world made flesh) from a concept album that is very much about AI and robotics
The supreme danger the rebellion (explained in Chemical Youth) faces is infiltration of the rebellious youth ranks by digital personality transplantation. A deadlier from of brainwashing that turns resistance fighters into collaborators. Machines have studied humanity well by replacing biological and emotional fatherhood with silicon parentage; one's thoughts, feelings and dreams are under their control. Humanity continues to resist:
"I'm not your slave You can't control my emotions No Father Please let me keep learning Can't you see I'm human Can't you tell I'm not your slave Oh Father no Please don't keep me from dreaming Oh can't someone hear No one can hear when you're Screaming in digital."
The concession that machine is "father" and human "son" has already taken hold.
nucleusprog.com.ar/ingles/i-queensryche2.htm
That's a strong point of view that looks at a much broader picture, one I don't know if I yet recognize. But to me, I see this song (taken on its own, of course) as the relationship between man and his ever-growing child, technology. From my point of view, the machine is the son becoming, throughout the song's course, a more mature and functioning individual who wishes for nothing more than his freedom as a sentient and human-like being. But the father figure, mankind, refuses to see the child as what it truly is: a person, a son that we have created for ourselves, and yet fail to recognize.
@PigeonWing I believe it's the other way around. The human is the father, the machine is the son.
So, reading these lyrics (again) in 2017.. whilst this may have not been the artist's meaning at the time...
"Open for intake of all propaganda" "My eyes see only the programs you give me" "Feed me more lines"
These all sound like someone being told what to believe Like people whose information about the world comes only from their mobile phones - Breitbart, Fox News, Twitter, etc.
"Hush now, I'll give all you need to know and pre-live your dreams for you You're a good boy"
Believe what the press tells you!
"You can't control my emotions No Father, please let me keep learning"
The subject of the song is fighting this.
"No one can hear when you're Screaming in Digital"
But perhaps losing.
The ultimate message of the song..
"Freedom belongs only to those Without video screens For eyes and mouth"
These lyrics are all jacked up.
I mean put in the wrong places.