Closer

You are all crack-heads. This is a song about someone who hates themselves and finds an escape in mindless sex. This is in no way a happy party song either. He gets closer to god because of the fact that when he's with someone he can feel better about his own insecurities. And when he does this he takes something from the other person.

So so so so so so so so so good! The only thing that may be better is the video with its symbolism...pure genius. Obviously a song about getting power and identity through sex, which isn't as uncommon as one would hope. Sex brings the person "closer to God," which could be a metaphor for feeling high and invincible. I used to want to have sex to this song, but I've changed my mind. It's a song for a one night stand or a loveless relationship. It's a song for superficial encounters, not for the good stuff...

You can't just read the lyrics to this song and be able to understand what it means. You need to take everything he does, the lyrics, vocals, and music video to be able to see what he is saying. Thats why i love Trent's music so much, he uses everything about the song to show the emotions. Trent has also said that the album The Downward Spiral tells a story of a man's decent into madness ending with him committing suicide.

This song is about him using sex with a woman he is obsessed with to cure his depression. If you listen to what he is saying and his emotions when he is saying it he is pleading with her to let him fuck her, hoping for some emotional release.

"You can have my isolation You can have the hate that it brings You can have my absence of faith You can have my everything"

He is telling her she can have everything just let him get this release.

"Help me tear down my reason Help me It's your sex I can smell Help me You make me perfect Help me become somebody else"

He wants her help to make him feel differently

if you watch the music video it shows that the beat in the beginning is his heart and as the song goes on he starts pleading with her more and more and begins to break down.

maybe he just wants to forget everything that's going on (out of his control) and fuck.

The way I see it, it's broken down into parts: obsession, violence, and hope. The violence part is pretty obvious. The hope and obsession are linked--this person is their last link to life, tearing down everything into basic instinct (like an animal).

The only person who knows the exact meaning of this song is Reznor, in my opinion. Ridiculously enough, I have my doubts about THAT, too.

My personal interpretation, however, is that "Closer" is about a combination of things, a situation. Sometimes, when you hate yourself really badly, you're completely fucked up and depressed and you get together with your partner and you start getting intimate, it is a sort of cry for help. Gradually, the disgust you feel towards yourself drives you into a state of primal, animalistic, almost violent lust-"fuck you like an animal"-and eventually the sex consumes you so much, it gives you partial relief as it distracts you from the mess in your head and the hate you feel for yourself. This way, you get closer to god-both through feeling complete bliss and ecstasy, and through lightening your psychological burdain-even if just temporarily. So, the "help me become somebody else" is pretty much asking to "get away from myself" as in escaping from being a self-hating wreck at least for the time while the sex is going on. The "you let me" part, to me, acknowledges the whole thing truly being a form of help the other person willingly gives. Also, in the end the lust seems to shift towards emotion, as the person gets "closer to god"-feels less filthy and troubled-he/she feels like, even with all their flaws and problems, the other person makes them perfect, even if it's in a perverse, out-of-the-ordinary way...which could translate into actually being love. You can't really understand unless you feel something like it yourself, but when it comes to me, this song gives me a kind of sick feeling-a mixture of depression, self-loathing, despair, disgust, obsession, sado-masochistic tendencies, lust, need, affection... I guess you just need to be a little sick in the head to get it.

That's the way I see it, and that's what it will always be to me. I think the interpretation of the song should be individual. But, the main point is that this song is absolutely perfect, and that's the fucking bottom line.

Ahem.... This is about one particular person. Before I say who, let's all agree on something, NIN is dark, yes? Really dark. Okay, so: You let me violate, desecrate, penetrate, complicate you.. Key points : you let, as in this person is allowing this to happen. And desecrate.. You can only desecrate a holy place, a tomb.. Or a dead body. Help me, I'm broken, got no soul etc.. I'm a tortured person, the only thing that works for me is this.. (the only thing that gets me off..) I wanna Fuck you like an animal.. Obvious. I wanna feel you from the inside.. I want every part of you.. Literally. My existence is flawed.. I am broken. You get me closer to God.. I get real power doing these things.. You can have my isolation and hate etc.. He's taking his issues out on this person.. Tear down my reason, make me perfect etc.. I'm out of control, doing this makes me feel right.. Okay.. So here's the big hint, the last verse is sung so quietly.. I don't understand the above the trees bit, but, "in my stomach".. I drink the honey from your hive, your the reason I'm alive.... He has eaten the person.. This song is about Jeffrey Dahmer..

"You bring me closer to God."

Let's see, how to interpret this song. The man is a user. The man is incomplete. He needs HER to live. Through her, he finds satisfaction of his power, his dominance, and his lust. Through her, he can vent his fears, his hate--he can let her "have my everything."

And when it's all done, she brings him closer to God..

My friend and I have discussed this song, and have come up with three opinions. This is only what we got from it so don't take it as the gospel truth.

1) The song is taken literally and is about a man coping with his desires and control issues. Where 'closer to god' makes him more in power, as he would imagine god.

2) The song is using sexual 'abuse' as an alagory to organized religion. Being abused and programmed by the church, which tells him not to use reason, but faith. In this case, the I is the church. This might not go along with the rest of the album, and is also questionable. Our most recent interpretation is...

3) Moral and philosophical ideals being undermined by lust and animal instincts. He is fed up with living in his head and gives up the problems associated with it (isolation, absence of faith, etc) to just revel in the physical. Also, shows that no matter how philisophical or idealistic you feel you are, you still get the urge to just fuck someone like an animal.

Again, these are just some ways in which we've interpretted it.

This song could be taken as a extreme satire or parody of pop music. All pop songs are about are sex, this song is just taking it to the extreme. "you get me closer to god" could be seen as how pop music make sex an object unreachable.