Burden

I love this song so immensely.

This song really identifies with me. In my interpretation,it's about a person who believes in humanity, but is frusterated by their actions.

Crime in the currency Fire down a bending wall Or would you care to be In all of the gambling that got started No one is better off Hope is a candle lit night No one is meant to be On anything afloat

To me, this is the person's perception of the world as it is now and as it has been through history: a corrupt, chaotic place. The last few lines, "No one is better off. Hope is a candle lit night" etc describes this person's fear that the world, and the people in it are beyond saving.

We just lie awake in a stolen thought We lie awake and imagine what we are We hide and wait for some golden star And hope the dirt is wearing off

We all know how screwed up things are, but the vast majority of us don't think we can change anything. We're confused, lost, imagining what our purpose is, do we even have a purpose? Why do we exist? Who are we as a people? We're hiding from our problems, and many of us making things worse. Those who aren't that cynical are hoping that a miracle will save us, that something will enlighten us, magically make us cooperate and work together, and we're hope that our sins will wash themselves away. Most people in the world are either consumed by their own greed, depravity, and sadism, or they don't believe people are capable of improving. I think this person is one of those few people who still believes and loves humanity, and that love is what frusterates him/her, because they keep disappointing him/her. S/he isn't a blind optimist, but this person believes that humanity the potential to do anything if they WORK for it, but is driven insane by the cynicism of others.

Fall like a domino Lob up another mistake

Humanity's perpetual downfalls and setbacks make this person bitter. I see this person shaking his/her head while watching the news, an empty look on his/her face.

All of it’s killing me Let’s find a bitter end and restart it

It hurts this person to see humanity do the things it does. Sometimes s/he just wants it all to end, to let humanity destroy itself and let something else take its place.

Love isn’t what you want Hold if you can’t believe

In his/her mind, this person lashes out at society, chastising it. "Hold if you can't believe" implies that people don't even realize how far gone they are.

Facing a loaded gun In time to take a look at what’s causing all the fuss We musn’t buckle all at once

The gun is the eventual fate of humanity, destruction, if they continue down the path they're on, and they wont realize this until it's too late. "We musn't buckle all at once" means that we can't all just give in and let our civilization fall. We have to stand up for something, believe in something, if we have any hope of surviving.

I just can’t hold it together

This line, and the music after it, is what's going through this person's mind: all the chaos and hopelessness as s/he watches humanity tear itself apart; it's all just too much to handle sometimes

The devil is not the nature that is around us But the nature that is within us all

This is the core of this person's beliefs: that most of the world's problems are self-inflicted. We have the potential to solve any problem that comes our way, but we refuse to cooperate, we refuse to believe in anything, because it's easy to be cynical, it's easy to think that the world is just a horrible place by nature, and there's nothing we can do to change it, but in reality, the only reason the world is still the way it is is because of US. The "devil" is the self-doubt, and cynicism within most of us, and the the blind optimism that everything will fix itself on its own (the "golden star") in the rest of us.

All in all, this song is about what humanity is and what humanity can be. This "person" the song is about, is anyone who has seen the good side and the bad side of humanity, anyone who knows the potential of human-kind, and is enraged at how they're wasting that potential. This song is almost an anthem to me, a message to anyone who believes they can change the world, anyone who is fed up with people who are too afraid to believe, too afraid to be hurt, anyone whose willing to fight to make things right in the world

Now, I'm sure this probably isn't what MuteMath meant when they wrote the lyrics of this song, but that's what it means to me, and whenever I hear it, it gets me mad, but it also makes me hopeful that maybe, there's someone else out there whose trying to prove that there's good left in this world, and it's worth defending.

Thanks for reading this far, I hope what I said makes sense, but it's hard to put my interpretation of this song into words. :P

I feel like this song this song is trying to decide how we face struggles on an everyday basis, and how we try so hard to overcome them they still keep coming and we fall dominoes to them...which is true, to a certain extent. We keep trying to live for something else but these "struggles" keep following us. I really like the end where he lets us all know how the devil is not just a being that is around us, but that he is in us, as in he is our flesh, since our flesh is of the world. But we can control our flesh, leaving the devil to go somewhere else.

If someone has the proper lyrics for this song from the album booklet, please please please post them!

This song to me is one of the most honest and open Mutemath songs that they've written... It's amazing how Paul Meany can find the lyrics that just state the pain and disappointment of living and being human. To me, on this album they've really expanded their expressive palette and gone for an even more honest, down to earth approach, and this song is the real soul of that approach I think. Musically it's an amazing piece of art, the extended drumming at the end is great... As far as meanings, it's basically a confession of helplessness ("I just can't hold it together") in the face of life's hardships. The line "Hope is a candelit night" paints a pretty bleak picture. But in the end he brings it around to say that really the problem arises from our own nature, from who we are as fallen human beings ("The devil is the nature that is within us all").