So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
The finches and sparrows build nests in my chimney
What remains of the small flightless birds that you failed to protect
But the yoke isn't easy, in fact it's a drag
Acid blown to cornfields and mountains of rice
All over the suburbs, across the great lawns
And they're crop dusting gardens all over this town
But nobody cares when it gets in their hair
It gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
It gets in the food that they buy and prepare
But nobody cares when it gets in their hair
Across the great chasms and the schisms and the sudden aneurysms
Where the black ink will drip across the crespice of your eyes
And your teeth are worth more than you can spare
Oh, don't tell me that it just isn't fair
Don't speak about the cycles of life
'Cause your thoughts are so soft
I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife
And the wine made our minds too loose
A reckless choice of words
And you tell me that I'm too abstruse
I just thought I was a kind of bird
I swear I just stood there not saying a word
Not saying a word, not saying a word
What remains of the small flightless birds that you failed to protect
But the yoke isn't easy, in fact it's a drag
Acid blown to cornfields and mountains of rice
All over the suburbs, across the great lawns
And they're crop dusting gardens all over this town
But nobody cares when it gets in their hair
It gets in their lungs as it floats through the air
It gets in the food that they buy and prepare
But nobody cares when it gets in their hair
Across the great chasms and the schisms and the sudden aneurysms
Where the black ink will drip across the crespice of your eyes
And your teeth are worth more than you can spare
Oh, don't tell me that it just isn't fair
Don't speak about the cycles of life
'Cause your thoughts are so soft
I could cut 'em with a spork or a bride's knife
And the wine made our minds too loose
A reckless choice of words
And you tell me that I'm too abstruse
I just thought I was a kind of bird
I swear I just stood there not saying a word
Not saying a word, not saying a word
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Chickens aren't flightless.
Whenever I see someone post about the artist telling the backstory, I think of the quote by Rick Riordan: "You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear through the search." That is the one problem I have with this site: that there is always someone who did just that.
What this song always brought to mind for me was Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." It conjures up imagery of DDT spreading across the landscape -- "acid blown to cornfields and mountains of rice, all over the suburbs, across the great lawns, cropdusting gardens all over this town" -- and the people all oblivious that they are poisoning themselves as well as the birds -- "it gets in the food that they buy and prepare, but nobody cares when it gets in their hair." It spearks to the shortsightedness of humans in what we do to our environment for what we perceive as short-term benefit (after all, DDT was originally presented as a wonderful thing) -- "Don't speak about the cycles of life" because it's too uncomfortable to have to question what we are doing to the world.