| The PAper ChAse – I'm Going to Heaven With or Without You (The Forest Fire) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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The spoken word sample at the beginning of the song is from the Woody Allen movie, September: "That it's all random. That everything is resonating aimlessly out of nothing, eventually vanishing forever. I'm not talking about the world; I'm talking about the universe. All space, all time–just temporary convulsion. [...] I think it's just as beautiful as you do–and vaguely evocative of some deep truth that always just keeps slipping away. [...] I understand it for what it truly is–haphazard, morally neutral, and unimaginably violent." As for the meaning of the song, like everything else on this brilliant album, "I'm Going to Heaven..." has defiant lyrics and chaotic music, trying to make sense of human existence in relationship to tragedy and death. The words here hint at people who are just living it up while the world burns ("We'll drink to anything, if it keeps the tires moving, keeps commuting smooth for you.") Randomness and the "unimaginably violent" world can't for forestalled by aimless rituals such as salt-throwing or avoiding black cats. The band is also openly hostile toward religion here, including wearing "a cross around my neck" as one of these futile actions in the face of certain death. Although this song doesn't quite indict the Almighty the way other tracks on the album do (see "What Should We Do With Your Body," ie), the unspoken theme here is a powerful one: that if God does indeed exist, then human violence, pain and death may actually be enjoyable for Him. It's a terrifying thought, and one that suits this incendiary, black-humored music quite well. |
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| The PAper ChAse – What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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On the surface, this brilliant pAper chAse album appears to simply describe various ways to die. Yet the band is trying to do more than be macabre; taken as a whole, these songs explore the irony of why we are on this earth only to suffer through tragedy, pain, and death. "What Should We Do With Your Body?" asks the mundane yet frankly shocking question that all humans must face: you're going to croak someday, where should we bury your ass? The song's narrator seems to be the spirit of God's vengeance, embodied in a (perhaps figurative) lightning bolt that causes sudden death. This first part of the song is musically chaotic to match the violent lyrical imagery. But it is in the song's second part that the deeper meaning is to be found. The band shifts tone and "Your Body" morphs into a faux-gospel hymn. In the background, a man asks a child, "Who made you?" "God made me," the girl whispers. "Where is God?" "God is everywhere," she responds. The implication is that, through all of these different stages of life and from the wonderful to the horrifying--from the "birthing scenes to suicide bombings"--God is present. So I believe the song is questioning that if God is indeed everywhere, why does he stand idly by while suicide bombers kill little kids, or humans die generally horrific deaths? "The willing whore is the hand of the Lord," implying that nature and circumstances combine to bring about humans' demise...and that God not only could care less, He might even enjoy it. This song, like the rest of the album, is a commentary on the conundrum of life and death and the human condition. |
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