| Butthole Surfers – Pepper Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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My understanding of this song is big-picture & existential, not the drug use related interpretations most people give it, but it really makes sense with what's said and the tone of the voice while he sings it. I'm not saying that it couldn't be about drug use; both interpretations can be valid. I think it's about the narrator being very dissatisfied with life (& with humans) but not to the point of wanting to end it (or some other highly emotional stance); he's trying to find humour in the human condition. The tone of the voice during the verses conveys disdain for the people (& the awful situations) he talks about, plus the way they (and the horrible things that happen to them) are enumerated gives the feeling of their insignificance - the narrator is very jaded by humanity and apathetic about changing the things that are wrong in the world (ex: "the ever-present football player rapist”), so his tone is almost bored when mentioning them. "They were all in love with dyin' they were drinkin' from a fountain / That is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain” – they live their lives (Marky, Sharon, Bobby, Mickey etc.) but they don’t realise they’re inexorably moving fast towards death through the very act of living. If they live to the fullest, recklessly, they only bring death faster. "Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain / That is pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain.” Some people love life, ugly as it is, and want to enjoy every second of it, but the result in the end is the same as for the ones who were: "all in love with dyin''”. Life is meaningless, be very happy or be very hurt, it doesn’t matter what you feel/choose/do anyway. The images the sun shows (what the light coming from the sun allows me to see) is a creative way of saying "what I see around me", so: "I don't mind the sun SOMETIMES, the images it shows" means that only sometimes is he not disturbed by what's going on around him, in the world. "I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes / Cinnamon and sugar-y and softly spoken lies" - what life feels like to him: "Cinnamon and sugar-y" - some good parts, but also a big portion that’s rotten, deceiving: "and softly spoken lies". "You never know just how you look through other people's eyes” – ironic remark about the people mentioned in the verses (who are stand-ins to represent the whole of humanity) to show they don’t look at all good through the eyes of the narrator. The title: death is the pepper of life. All these horrible things happen around us, fellow humans suck, life sucks, but it’s limited and we keep getting reminded of that by all the deaths that occur; we’re all gonna die in the end so it doesn’t matter anyway, let’s try to push through the shit the best way we can. Overall, feelings of insignificance, mortality, being hurt/disappointed but apathetic about it, finding life/humans horrible but accepting it and taking it all with a pinch of humour. |
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