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.
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
Uh, uh-huh, yeah
Uh, uh-huh, yeah
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah
What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neat-o
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "me too" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Hellen Keller
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard? (Uh, uh, loggin' in now)
Wanna run wit my crew, huh? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em all printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week? (Uh-huh)
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique (come on)
Your laptop is a month old? (Yeah) well, that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is right-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operating system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin' (uh, uh)
It does all my work without me even askin' (uh, uh, uh)
Got a flat-screen monitor, forty inches wide
I believe that yours says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side
In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user (come on)
You've got your own newsgroup, "Alt.Total-Loser" (come on)
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax (come on)
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks? (Come on)
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
What y'all wanna do? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What?
Uh, uh-huh, yeah
Uh, uh-huh, yeah
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah
What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neat-o
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "me too" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Hellen Keller
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard? (Uh, uh, loggin' in now)
Wanna run wit my crew, huh? (Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em all printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week? (Uh-huh)
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique (come on)
Your laptop is a month old? (Yeah) well, that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is right-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operating system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin' (uh, uh)
It does all my work without me even askin' (uh, uh, uh)
Got a flat-screen monitor, forty inches wide
I believe that yours says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side
In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user (come on)
You've got your own newsgroup, "Alt.Total-Loser" (come on)
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax (come on)
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks? (Come on)
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums, yeah (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums (it's all about the Pentiums, baby)
What y'all wanna do? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers? (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What?
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Al sounds like a poser here: I mean, a C64? That's setting the bar pretty low, even in 1999. So you don't read spam? That's a talent shared w/99% of its recipients (it was the 1% that kept spammers going), and the best one is "my media is write-protected"? I don't know where to begin with how lame a boast that is.
In fact, I think Al was trying to sound like a poser.