| Strung Out – Dead Spaces Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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I’m going to go out on a limb and interpret this song a little differently. I believe the song is written from the perspective of a poetry journal, a small book that a person wrote songs or poems in. The journal belongs to someone who has died by suicide or died unexpectedly, maybe even Jim Cherry, the original bassist for Strung Out, and the journal now laments its loneliness and its inability to reveal the depth of the writer’s hopelessness. A line-by-line interpretation is below: These lines on my face give up the time. This blood writhing through my veins is life-like wine. (‘Lines’ refer to lines of poetry. The ‘face’ is the page, which, as a diary, may include literal dates, or may just bring back memories for the journal. The ‘blood’ is the ink that runs through the pages, bringing the writer back to life through his words.) Drink to our last kiss and write a book about the mess. A life in vulgar poetry, a testament in rhyme. (The ‘blood’ — ink — reminds the journal of their last kiss — the last time the writer wrote in him. The journal toasts this memory with the wine — also ink — from the writer’s pen. The writer’s life is put down in this messy book of vulgar poetry; the journal testifies to the writer’s existence through the rhymes that have been left behind.) Incincerate while we can. (Ambiguous. Perhaps the journal is flashing back to their “last kiss”, the last burning, passionate moment of their relationship.) So now I sit alone in the dark in the house we used to play the part. Empty rooms and photographs shout back in silence. (The journal looks around at the empty house that it and the writer shared together.) Dead spaces echo an attack For the love of what we used to both call home… (‘Dead spaces’ — referring to the empty rooms of the house, the silence of the house, and the blank spaces on the page — echo back the attack, or suicide, that took away the writer, whom the journal loved and associated with home.) “Wave a white flag and count me out.” “Recognize how sanity would feel.” (These are literal lines from the journal.) The space between these lines that I could never quite reveal. (The “space” between the lines of poetry mentioned above could be interpreted in the same way we might say, “Read between the lines.” In other words: If only someone had checked in on this person, he might still be here.) In the blink of an eye: That's just too short to suffocate and kill. (A little ambiguous. Perhaps the lines of poetry like the ones above are short and people read them quickly. Even though they’re signs that the writer needs help, the average reader wouldn’t attribute much significance to them, or at least the significance of revealing genuine suicidal thoughts.) It's been two weeks without a sign of anyone. I left the world behind cuz I don't wanna believe in love. (The journal has been alone for two weeks since the suicide. It no longer believes in love.) Anxiety of a future we cannot command too broken for the test, too toxic for a stand. (These lines could be from the journal’s mind or could be the writer’s words in the journal. Hopelessness and anxiety have made both the writer and journal unable to move on.) So I laid down and lost myself in things I could not live down. We are the wings of doves, too broke to fly, to carry on. (The pages of the book are like dove’s wings. The words on them come from a man who has broken; thus, the journal can’t fly from the things it’s trying to forget, in the same way the writer couldn’t fly from his own mind. Again, these words could be from the journal’s mind or from the writer’s written words, which is really interesting and incredibly complex.) So now I sit alone with the dark in the house we used to play. Empty rooms and photographs in silence. As the memories come rushing back, dead spaces echo an attack. All for the love we left in silence. (The journal is alone in the empty home. The writer attacked his own life, and the resulting emptiness echoes through the pages, the air, and the home. The journal loved the writer, but its world has been left in silence.) |
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| Strung Out – Blueprint Of The Fall Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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The song is summed up in these lyrics: [our] blind pride [is] the blueprint to the fall of the entire human race Here’s my line-by-line analysis: Imagine a place where freedom’s just a word on the wall Surrounded by the wreckage of towers that could never fall (This alludes to the Twin Towers.‘Freedom’ is not just a word to Americans. It’s a concept that we glorify to an unhealthy degree. It makes us think we’re invincible, but we’re not, as evidenced by the attacks of 9/11.) The company will avenge (‘Company’ is a pun. It refers to a military company and a corporation. Which of these two will avenge the loss of life is left intentionally ambiguous.) Imagine the lies like bombs turn the shock and the awe For justice in time and a land where justice never was (He wonders what our country would be like if lies caused the same level of shock and awe as bombs. If they did, perhaps we could have justice in a place that has historically been unjust — presumably this refers to slavery) One thief to rule them all (An allusion to Lord of the Rings — the best liar is the one who, like Sauron, is able to organize others to do work for him). Along the Potomac and west toward the sea Through the ghettos past the monuments we all built to house the weak (A retracing of American history. The Potomac borders Washington, DC, and the expansion westward through Manifest Destiny took Americans “west toward the sea” in the 19th century. All along this pathway there are expensive monuments to our history and, ironically, modern ghettos. This is a symbol for the glorification of the past at the expense of our present. It’s the blueprint to the fall of our place in history The end to what we all believed to be the hope to save this place (This glorification of our past and its abstract, sometimes hypocritical ideals — such as freedom in a country of slaves — is the blueprint to our country’s demise. Even if we hoped this country would be the beacon to the rest of the world.) And I walk among the flagstones through the graves An apocalypse is bloomin' in the sage (Reminiscent of Arlington National Cemetery — as in keeping with the Washington, DC imagery — he noted that these graves are foreshadowing our downfall. He uses sage, which is an herb symbolizing wisdom, to indicate, interestingly, that the wisdom of the founding fathers and our reverence for them and their ideals are leading us to an apocalypse.) Dead presidents lined coffin text in biblical unrest (These monuments, along with the gravestones of soldiers — which he’ll revisit in the song “Black Crosses” — are still alive to Americans. He hints we should put them to rest.) The blind pride, home genocide, And the secret wars we all missed It's the blueprint to the fall of the entire human race The end to what we all believed would be the hope to save this place (Less abstract lines. Our national pride, which is blind; our home genocide, including Native Americans and slaves; and our secret wars, such as in Latin America, will lead to this country’s downfall. This downfall would be the fall of not just America, but the hope of representative democracy, and even the human race as a whole. |
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