Leper Song

Gond song,"good band too. "To me, this song is about buryilg ones true feelings deep down knside, bnd how fake and sick it makes someone fdel.

another one of my personal favorite songs ever.

i think it's about how obscured your self-image can become during a bout with depression. you start changing into someone you don't even recognize...

and then, also, i think it's about trying not to let on to others what's going on, like midix said

i think it's about not knowing what you thought you knew.

I love this song, truly amazing. [i typed all this out once and i accidentally erased it! so here is my second entry as i am a little bit upset. This won't be as good but here it is] (Oh and one part of the lyrics is wrong "Am i dying just to say?" is actually "Am i dying just to save...air?")

anyways, what this song means to me...

"Am I peeking if I look?" ~This is a great line. It reminds me of the ancient words of Socrates, "Know thyself" or "Explore thyself." Looking inside his mind feels like "peeking" to him, and it does when i do it too, since we are usually concentrating on looking OUTside of ourselves with our eyes, not INside.

"Do my kisses feel invasive? Am i crying when I smile? Who am I to say?" ~This makes me think of the way our emotions and the way we feel translate into our physical appearances, and how much can be lost in that translation. This also raises two ideas that i think conflict in our minds, whether we know it or not: (1) Should i concentrate on my physical APPEARANCE when i want to kiss, cry, or smile? Or (2) should i concentrate on how i actually FEEL when i want to kiss, cry, or smile. When you concentrate on one, you sort of have to disregard your care for the other. Also, I think he's a little worried about how people see him and what they think as well. If that is the case, i think it's important to show yourself for your own sake and not for others', then how can you be dissapointed?

"Can I see this from the inside? ~Again, re-establishing the idea of seeing something FROM inside yourself, instead of FROM outside - as with your eyes. He wants to see himself without the use of a photograph, or a mirror, etc. He wants to see behind his physicality.

"Am I dying just to save...air?" ~Beautiful. I think, he is basically questioning the worth of his life and death and the value of all of our individual lives and deaths. In other words, Is the reason that we die simply a physical reason, such as saving air? This seems like an obvious sarcastic question, but it proves a point....and then i think it fuels the mind to think about more complex things. such as, "Why AM i alive, then?" or "why am i going to die...?"

"With all these words hung 'round my neck my head is feeling heavy Let me sleep." ~Words are weighing him down. Words do that. Maybe he cannot speak as fast as he feels, or maybe words are insufficient toward how he wants to describe his feelings or this entire song!, maybe he doesn't know enough words to communicate everything what he wants to say. Words are like that i think. This reminds me of a quote from a great book 'A Fine and Private Place': "He was tired of talking about it. Talk rusted everything in time."

"Did i sneak something inside? A bitter pill a tasteless poison?" ~Sometimes the appearances of things we do or see, etc. are different from the way they effect us internally. Without his knowing it, he thinks he may have poisoned himself symbolically, which would explain his sudden melancholy or whatever he is feeling, becuse he almost feels like he doesn't know how it got there. (I think I'm only scratching the surface on some of these. This song is just so great and complex)

"Do I have something to hide? Who am I to say?" ~We don't even know ourselves sometimes. Who are we to say we know everything about ourselves, right? Maybe there are things we don't even know we are hiding...from others...from ourselves...

"I'm lonely as a leper" ~Just as a leper is cannot physically be close to anyone, this character cannot be internally close to anyone. The way he sees himself, the way he feels inside cannot be felt or seen by others. On top of it, he's tired of having the burden of needing to use words and monitoring all his physical appearances, checking if theyre accurate to his feelings (Is he crying when he smiles). He feels like an emotional leper i think.

"I'm contagious as hell" ~As a leper is contagious with its physical curse, so is this character. When others try to get close to him internally, they discover they cannot and also that he cannot become truly close to them internally.

"With my clothing and my make-up, I bet you couldn't tell" ~Again, physical appearances do not accurately represent how he feels inside, they sometimes even hide the way he feels. The external is not a perfect reflection of the internal.

"Some nights i don't sleep and when I do i sleep fitfull. "These dreams are not mine," ~He doesn't even recognize his own dreams as his own. It's as if he even sometimes disagrees with the way his internal mind displays the way he thinks. Crazy...That, in my opinion, would be the effect of "a tasteless poison" or something he didnt know was hiding in his mind and suddenly BOOM there it is in his dreams. He doesn't recognize it. Maybe not though.

"and i wake up in a very bad mood." ~i love it. it reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote: “The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal." THIS SONG IS GREAT. i hope something i said makes sense haha. Sorry for so much writing too.