Machinehead

To me, it's pretty obvious the song is about a guy getting into a car crash.

'Breathe in, breathe out'

The refrain is what people do when they're in an emergency situation, such as a car crash. You focus on breathing in and out so you don't start hyperventilating or panicking, and once you have that under control you figure out what to do.

'Tied to a wheel, my fingers got to feel Bleeding through a tourniquet smile.'

This guy is with his car so much it's like he's tied to the wheel. He spends his leisure time driving, it's his sense of freedom. I think the tourniquet line is a foreshadowing of the car accident. A tourniquet is used to stop arterial bleeding, thus he's been injured.

'I spin on a whim, I slide to the right I felt you like electric light For our love, for our fear For our rise Against the years and years and years'

He does something stupid in the car: he spins on a whim, slides to the right, and suddenly he seems the other car/person/wall/whatever he hits. The realization in his brain is fast like electricity, but he's too slow to stop the crash. I interpret the 'for our love' ect lines as there was someone else in the car with him, or that he hit someone he cared about.

'Got a machinehead Better than the rest Green to red Machinehead'

This reflects the invincibility he feels about his car before the crash. Green to red means that he should have stopped, he should have been more careful. Now not only is he in an accident, but he doesn't have that cockiness about his machine head anymore.

'Deaf, dumb, dirty Starting to deserve this Leaning on my conscious wall Blood is like wine Unconscious all the time If I had it all again I'd change it all.'

The narrator is passed out wherever he is, in need of medical attention, and periodically comes to consciousness wishing that he could change it all. Blood is like wine- it's dark and red and pouring everywhere.

I think the line 'I walk from my machine' means that, at the end of the day even if the narrator got a bit banged up, he got to walk out of the hospital and back to his normal life. Someone else did not get that opportunity.