In regards to the meaning of this song:
Before a live performance on the EP Five Stories Falling, Geoff states “It’s about the last time I went to visit my grandmother in Columbus, and I saw that she was dying and it was the last time I was going to see her. It is about realizing how young you are, but how quickly you can go.”
That’s the thing about Geoff and his sublime poetry, you think it’s about one thing, but really it’s about something entirely different. But the lyrics are still universal and omnipresent, ubiquitous, even. So relatable. That’s one thing I love about this band. I also love their live performances, raw energy and Geoff’s beautiful, imperfectly perfect vocals. His voice soothes my aching soul.
Mendel's machines replicate in the night
In the black iron prison of St. Augustine's light
He's paying the bills and they're doing him proud
They can float their burnt offerings on assembler clouds
The new Franklins fly their kites
With omega point in the sight
And the post modern empire is ended tonight
From history
The flood of counterfeits released
The black cloud
Reductionism and the beast
Automatons gather all the pieces
So the world may be increased
In simulation jubilation
For the deceased...
Spray-on clothes and diamond jaws
Wrinkles smoothed by nanoclaws
With my machines I can dispatch you
From this world without a trace
Our nostalgia ghosts are ready to take your place
Content-shifting shopping malls
Gasoline trees and walk-through walls
None of them knew...
As I watch the dead rise up out of the earth
I feel the gray goo boiling my blood
Try to hide from the lies as they all come true
Deus absconditus
Deus nullus deus nisi deus
I feel the grey goo boiling my blood
As the fenris wolf slowly bites through his chain
Try to hide the myth as it becomes a man
None of them knew they were robots
Buying an X or an O
Cats game for Joe Blow
In state craft tic tac toe
A binary hug or kiss
Post industrial bliss
Can be wrung from utility mist
They stole the great arcanum
The secret fire
Moloch found his gold
For the new empire
Once again
The necrophage becomes saint
Lindy hop around the truth
Jump back wolf pack attack
Swingin' up there in the noose
Jump back wolf pack attack
Slap back white shark attack
Slap back white shark attack
Phased array diffraction nets
From full-wall paint-on TV sets
Migratory home sublets
And time shared diamond fiber sets
Recombinant logos keys
Bitic Qabalistic trees
I feel the grey goo boiling my blood
As leviathan and his bugs freeze the sea
Try to save the world by immolating myself
The flood of counterfeits released
From history
The black cloud
Automotons gather all the pieces
The resurrection of the deceased
In simulation jubilation
For the builders
So the world may be increased
Of the body of the beast
In the black iron prison of St. Augustine's light
He's paying the bills and they're doing him proud
They can float their burnt offerings on assembler clouds
The new Franklins fly their kites
With omega point in the sight
And the post modern empire is ended tonight
From history
The flood of counterfeits released
The black cloud
Reductionism and the beast
Automatons gather all the pieces
So the world may be increased
In simulation jubilation
For the deceased...
Spray-on clothes and diamond jaws
Wrinkles smoothed by nanoclaws
With my machines I can dispatch you
From this world without a trace
Our nostalgia ghosts are ready to take your place
Content-shifting shopping malls
Gasoline trees and walk-through walls
None of them knew...
As I watch the dead rise up out of the earth
I feel the gray goo boiling my blood
Try to hide from the lies as they all come true
Deus absconditus
Deus nullus deus nisi deus
I feel the grey goo boiling my blood
As the fenris wolf slowly bites through his chain
Try to hide the myth as it becomes a man
None of them knew they were robots
Buying an X or an O
Cats game for Joe Blow
In state craft tic tac toe
A binary hug or kiss
Post industrial bliss
Can be wrung from utility mist
They stole the great arcanum
The secret fire
Moloch found his gold
For the new empire
Once again
The necrophage becomes saint
Lindy hop around the truth
Jump back wolf pack attack
Swingin' up there in the noose
Jump back wolf pack attack
Slap back white shark attack
Slap back white shark attack
Phased array diffraction nets
From full-wall paint-on TV sets
Migratory home sublets
And time shared diamond fiber sets
Recombinant logos keys
Bitic Qabalistic trees
I feel the grey goo boiling my blood
As leviathan and his bugs freeze the sea
Try to save the world by immolating myself
The flood of counterfeits released
From history
The black cloud
Automotons gather all the pieces
The resurrection of the deceased
In simulation jubilation
For the builders
So the world may be increased
Of the body of the beast
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Or even simpler: What's the difference between a robot and someone who goes to work and performs the same tasks day after day, because society tells him to do so?
Mr Bungles guitarist (and the one who wrote the song) had this to say about it. "I just want to clarify that reference to Omega Point in NOTKTWR does not make the song 'about' that subject. Tipler's brand of scientific cryptotheology is just one of the elements taken into consideration in the song - I use it to help illustrate a point. Namely, that the reductionist tendency in physics/sciences springs from the same source as the worst religious Dogmatism. Gnostics would argue that both serve the Demiurgos, or False God - creator of the physical universe, who unwittingly conceals the True Hidden God while imagining himself to be The One. In any case, the reference to St. Augustine is not there to bash religion, but to help chart the linear history of where science and religion converge in their satanic pact (In the beginning was a Bang!). Most importantly, these images deal with the timeless tendency to overly-literalistic reductionism - how we render the universe to ourselves prematurely, and round out the edges to make it consistent with our beliefs. No area of inquiry is immune - we're lucky if we can penetrate any respective channel of 'human knowledge' deep enough to discover the three or four totally shit-upon luminaries who are sitting there dispersed through time in backed-up sewer-systems of brainbending superfluous nonsense.
"I hope people will at least see that the song doesn't consider science or religion to be particularly opposed in this regard. Sure, with the Inquisition we all have historical precedent for the severity of 'religious' atrocities - but it [cyclical time] might make you wonder which cloak the Beast will don to the next be-heading party... has it already begun? Either it never started, or it will never end. None of them knew..."
...and the translation? for us people who haven't got ten degrees in English and weren't brought up by English lan/lit teachers for parents. sorry, i kind of understand, just not fully. Still, this song rules!
Awesome song! No, none of them knew...
first mr. bungle song i heard, heard it on the radio, was hooked instantly
I thought that the title was a reference to The Stepford Wives, guess I was wrong...
Just a few things I can comment on off the top of my head:
"Mendel's machines replicate in the night"
Mendel was the founder and discoverer of genetics. The replicating machines referred to are genes.
"Automatons gather all the pieces"
An automaton is a machine that runs automatically, usually a robot.
"I feel the grey goo boiling my blood"
In nanotechnology (which involves technology constructed at the molecular level), grey goo is a word used to refer to a hypothetical swarm of nanomachines that (through some human error or lack of foresight) devours everything it encounters.
"Deus absconditus"
The once popular (and still encountered) philosophical idea that God, after creating the universe, left it free to run according to natural laws
"As the fenris wolf slowly bites through his chain"
In Norse mythology, the end of the world (Ragnarok) is signaled by the fenris wolf freeing itself from its chain.
"The necrophage becomes saint"
Necrophage means "corpse-eater" or "death-eater"
"Bitic Qabalistic trees"
I don't know what bitic means, but this is a reference to a form of Jewish mysticism called "Kabbalah." Kabbalah's philosophy is organized into a tree shape, which is the commonly used symbol of the religion.
"the body of the beast"
The is a reference to the Beast in the book of Revelation in the Bible. Revelation consists mostly of an account of visions of the end of the world, in which the beast--famously represented by the number 666--plays an important part.
first mr. bungle song i heard, heard it on the radio, was hooked instantly
wow you heard this on they radio? damn!!!
Why would you search an artist, then go to a song, just to say you hate someone? This website is meant for people to tell what they think the song means, that's why it's songmeanings.net.