So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Six AM day after Christmas
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold
Car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping
I am numb
Up the stairs to her apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte
They're not home to find us out
And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I'm feeling more alone
Than I ever have before
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
They call her name at seven-thirty
I pace around the parking lot
Then I walk down to buy her flowers
And sell some gifts that I got
Can't you see
It's not me you're dying for?
Now she's feeling more alone
Than she ever has before
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me "Son it's time to tell the truth"
And she broke down and I broke down
'Cause I was tired of lying
Driving back to her apartment
For the moment, we're alone
Yeah, she's alone and I'm alone
And now I know it
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold
Car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping
I am numb
Up the stairs to her apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to Charlotte
They're not home to find us out
And we drive
Now that I have found someone
I'm feeling more alone
Than I ever have before
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
They call her name at seven-thirty
I pace around the parking lot
Then I walk down to buy her flowers
And sell some gifts that I got
Can't you see
It's not me you're dying for?
Now she's feeling more alone
Than she ever has before
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
As weeks went by
It showed that she was not fine
They told me "Son it's time to tell the truth"
And she broke down and I broke down
'Cause I was tired of lying
Driving back to her apartment
For the moment, we're alone
Yeah, she's alone and I'm alone
And now I know it
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly
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The Spy
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Doors, The
Like a lot of the other comments are saying, I think this mainly about voyeurism. If the song was about his girlfriend, then why would he use the word spy. If you are a spy it means you shouldn't be caught, that is kind of the whole point, and if you are a voyeur, the whole point of the pleasure you get from it, is the fact that the other people don't know you are watching them. See a bit of a connection there?
when rules change
Life in Your Way
Life in Your Way
High life
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him.
There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
"That's how the Constitution intended it to be" I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the U.S. Constitution doesn't mention anything at all about abortion - I get what you're saying about state laws, etc but I think the whole idea of "intent" is sort of silly. Not to mention that the fact that some state legislatures decided at one point or another that Jim Crow laws were a good idea, while others didn't. That said - I think having gone through what you did with your wife, that you'd understand that no pregnant woman/couple ever takes the decision of abortion lightly: contrary to what a lot of pro-life (usually men) people perpetuate. Also I think the song does a great job of humanizing and personalizing a couple's decision to choose. I don't think it ever makes claims on what the "right" decision would be.
I pace around the parking lot Then I walk down to buy her flowers And sell some gifts that I got
It's difficult to say what really happened after hearing this line. Either on Boxing Day, the couple got an official pregnancy test done at the doctor's office (obviously it was positive) after being certain "enough" that she was pregnant via home test - or they already knew she was pregnant and were waiting for her parents to go out of town to have an abortion. I used to think it was the latter, but after reading those last two lines, I think they're at the Doc's for a pregnancy test: being a good BF, he's prepared for either of her reactions to the (probable) positive prenancy: flowers for "yay! we're having a baby!" AND selling his Xmas gifts to raise cash in the case that he needs to help her pay for an abortion if that's what she wants.
So overall, I think this song is really about the experience that a loving boyfriend/husband went/might go through when faced with unintentionally getting his GF/wife pregnant; emphasizing that the choice is not a solitary one.