Sheep Go To Heaven

For me, the song is about rejecting the "safe" or "usual" life, or embracing non-conformity, as calzones said.

"I don't want to go to Sunset Strip, I don't want to feel the emptiness. Gold marquees with stupid band names."

Using a band as the example here, you can live the safe life, but there will probably be an emptiness inside. You can make some money and know you'll be having your next meal or your bills were paid, or you can go do what's actually fun. In this case, probably driving out to the desert and having a fulfilling time singing around a small campfire with some friends, as opposed to playing Sunset Strip and basically only getting money for it.

"I just want to play on my panpipes. I just want to drink me some wine. As soon as you're born you start dying, so you might as well have a good time."

Using this to support the example, I'd rather go drink wine and play music for myself, than play for an audience that in at least some small way thinks they own me because they paid for a ticket.

What I love about this song is the simple pagan metaphors. While others were being religious and doing what they were told was right, pagans would go out in the middle of the night, get a goat, tear it to shreds, eat it, drink wine and have an orgy. They are the ancient version of the previous example. They only had so much time to live, so rather than pleasing a deity or a monarch, they chose to please themselves.

The Church obviously not a fan, and began to use goat features to portray the devil. As marvinos said, often a man's body with a goat features on its head and goat legs.

And of course the obvious biblical reference. Jesus being the shepherd who cares for his sheep, the followers. The goats, who prefer to be on their own, won't be protected by the shepherd (upon death or a rapture).

The pagans are fine with going to hell, they know they have this time to enjoy whether they go to hell or just die and that's it, spending their days shunned by those doing it the right way. The band members commit the egregious sin of not working, thus being shunned and shamed in a society that values its corporations more than its workers. There was a lot of money to be made by the studio, after all.

My favorite part is at the end where going to hell is flipped around and the term "go to hell" is used to tell off "normal" society and show contentment with the choices to live a different life.

???? Part of me thinks the band just wanted to say "go to hell" over and over for fun. Similar to the end of Aerosmith's "Just Push Play".