I think this song kinda describes the current state of the world's faith or maybe his own faith as barely hanging on by a thread.. the narrator or the world or whatever is struggling to hold on to his faith, but it is constantly under attack with the technology and science that is widely accepted, such as evolution....
he refers to us as being "orphans in a tidal wave's wake" which probably is alluding to us as orphans of "our Father", god, who, in this day and age, has seemed to abandon us in the wake of disaster. It's kinda an age of faithlessness and I think thats what the song centers on... he seems skeptical of the whole idea of faith but still wishes he or the world could believe maybe... he says hes stranded "in the sun where these dark winds wail" which is kinda paradoxical.. i think that is somewhat a critisism of god: supposeofly we are his chosen children whom he loves and watches over and all that, yet there is so much suffering on earth with disease and starvation plaguing the world.. so although we are supposeofly his pride and joy or whatever and although he can do whatever he wants, we are subjected to these "dark winds" which causes many to question their faith and to feel abandoned or "stranded"
while hes critical of faith, however, he still "want[s] to hear what the blind men sing / With their fossils and their gypsy bones": he still wants to believe the ancient scriptures and wants to be able to believe all the things that these figurativly "blind" men sing of... he still yearns to be able to believe all the optomistic, outdated things in the bible, but in this age of science, it is against ones better judgement to believe the stories of miraces that are told in the bible and in fact the "fossils and gypsy bones" are kinda for those who are outdated and unperceptive and "blind" to the truth in the world, he feels ... he still wishes he could renew his faith, but he asks, "how can I make new again what rusts every time it rains?" -as much as he tries to regain faith in some sort of higher power, with every disaster or perhaps with every new scientific advancement, his faith rusts.. and he cant help but get weary of buffing it up and trying to fight off his agnositc feelings...
in the allusion to the rubicon, it seems that he is ill equipt in the modern era for faithfulness... to "cross the rubicon" is to say that one has "crossed the point of no return".. so to say youre "ten leagues from a rubicon" is to say that there is definitely no turning back... I'm not really sure what he cannot go back on... if i were to take a stab at it i would have to guess that he feels he or the world is so deeply invested into the whole religion/faith thing that one cannot go back... but to keep going with "matchsticks for bones" would be pretty difficult as well. people invest so much time and so much emotion into the idea of god, and to say now that there is no god or that the bible is full of lies would be nearly impossible... and yet at the same time he cannot see how people go onward with their "matchstick bones" inwhich there is no real argument to support their beliefs besides all those old stories in the bible that the blind men sing about or the idea of 'faith' perhaps
he says "if we could learn how to freeze ourselves alive / We could learn to leave these burdens to burn" which may be referring the the scientific advancements that have been made in cyronics (the freezing of humans alive)... if we could just learn to preserve a human being then in a way one could, in theory, live forever, which would mean that one wouldnt have to worry about death and one could forget about the burden of the ten commandments or the like..
the last stanza, he describes god "with all of his crimson and his iron desire" - probably a reference to the god in the old testament, who commands his followers to go to war and to kill people.. he's described as a jealous and somewhat violent god... and yet people today still chose to believe in him as a loving and caring god, as in the new testament... but as described in the last stanza, "we'll drag the streets with baggage of longing / To be loved or destroyed;" whether god is a loving or violent god, the narrator sees people as worshipping god just because they long to be loved (or destroyed i guess?).. people are fighting off existential feelings of loneliness by dragging around the burden of the commandments and all the silly rituals that god commands be done; rather than take up the belief that everyone is alone in the universe, people choose to worship god, and have, in a sense, an imaginary friend, as god was once described. -people are willing to overlook the reasons against faith and reasons to believe that god is somewhat selfish or mean or whatever because they'd rather be a "grain of sand" controlled by god than have to face the "void" that science suggests waits for one at death
well thats my interpretation.. did that make sense?
I think this song kinda describes the current state of the world's faith or maybe his own faith as barely hanging on by a thread.. the narrator or the world or whatever is struggling to hold on to his faith, but it is constantly under attack with the technology and science that is widely accepted, such as evolution....
he refers to us as being "orphans in a tidal wave's wake" which probably is alluding to us as orphans of "our Father", god, who, in this day and age, has seemed to abandon us in the wake of disaster. It's kinda an age of faithlessness and I think thats what the song centers on... he seems skeptical of the whole idea of faith but still wishes he or the world could believe maybe... he says hes stranded "in the sun where these dark winds wail" which is kinda paradoxical.. i think that is somewhat a critisism of god: supposeofly we are his chosen children whom he loves and watches over and all that, yet there is so much suffering on earth with disease and starvation plaguing the world.. so although we are supposeofly his pride and joy or whatever and although he can do whatever he wants, we are subjected to these "dark winds" which causes many to question their faith and to feel abandoned or "stranded"
while hes critical of faith, however, he still "want[s] to hear what the blind men sing / With their fossils and their gypsy bones": he still wants to believe the ancient scriptures and wants to be able to believe all the things that these figurativly "blind" men sing of... he still yearns to be able to believe all the optomistic, outdated things in the bible, but in this age of science, it is against ones better judgement to believe the stories of miraces that are told in the bible and in fact the "fossils and gypsy bones" are kinda for those who are outdated and unperceptive and "blind" to the truth in the world, he feels ... he still wishes he could renew his faith, but he asks, "how can I make new again what rusts every time it rains?" -as much as he tries to regain faith in some sort of higher power, with every disaster or perhaps with every new scientific advancement, his faith rusts.. and he cant help but get weary of buffing it up and trying to fight off his agnositc feelings...
in the allusion to the rubicon, it seems that he is ill equipt in the modern era for faithfulness... to "cross the rubicon" is to say that one has "crossed the point of no return".. so to say youre "ten leagues from a rubicon" is to say that there is definitely no turning back... I'm not really sure what he cannot go back on... if i were to take a stab at it i would have to guess that he feels he or the world is so deeply invested into the whole religion/faith thing that one cannot go back... but to keep going with "matchsticks for bones" would be pretty difficult as well. people invest so much time and so much emotion into the idea of god, and to say now that there is no god or that the bible is full of lies would be nearly impossible... and yet at the same time he cannot see how people go onward with their "matchstick bones" inwhich there is no real argument to support their beliefs besides all those old stories in the bible that the blind men sing about or the idea of 'faith' perhaps
he says "if we could learn how to freeze ourselves alive / We could learn to leave these burdens to burn" which may be referring the the scientific advancements that have been made in cyronics (the freezing of humans alive)... if we could just learn to preserve a human being then in a way one could, in theory, live forever, which would mean that one wouldnt have to worry about death and one could forget about the burden of the ten commandments or the like..
the last stanza, he describes god "with all of his crimson and his iron desire" - probably a reference to the god in the old testament, who commands his followers to go to war and to kill people.. he's described as a jealous and somewhat violent god... and yet people today still chose to believe in him as a loving and caring god, as in the new testament... but as described in the last stanza, "we'll drag the streets with baggage of longing / To be loved or destroyed;" whether god is a loving or violent god, the narrator sees people as worshipping god just because they long to be loved (or destroyed i guess?).. people are fighting off existential feelings of loneliness by dragging around the burden of the commandments and all the silly rituals that god commands be done; rather than take up the belief that everyone is alone in the universe, people choose to worship god, and have, in a sense, an imaginary friend, as god was once described. -people are willing to overlook the reasons against faith and reasons to believe that god is somewhat selfish or mean or whatever because they'd rather be a "grain of sand" controlled by god than have to face the "void" that science suggests waits for one at death
well thats my interpretation.. did that make sense?