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.
Leaf by Leaf, page by page
Throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding, tear the glue
All of the grief we never ever knew
We had it all along
Now it's smoke
The things we've written in it
Never really happened
All of the people come and gone
Never really lived
All of the people have come have gone
No one to forgive smoke
We will never write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
Here's an evening dark with shame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time I took the blame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
It seemed for years and years
Here's a secret
No one will ever know the
Reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Where do all the secrets live
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Stop and smell the smoke
You keep on saying the past is not dead
Come on and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not even past
You keep saying
We are, smoke
Throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage
Throw this book away
Rip out the binding, tear the glue
All of the grief we never ever knew
We had it all along
Now it's smoke
The things we've written in it
Never really happened
All of the people come and gone
Never really lived
All of the people have come have gone
No one to forgive smoke
We will never write a new one
There will not be a new one
Another one, another one
Here's an evening dark with shame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time I took the blame
Throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
It seemed for years and years
Here's a secret
No one will ever know the
Reasons for the tears
They are smoke
Where do all the secrets live
They travel in the air
You can smell them when they burn
They travel
Those who say the past is not dead
Stop and smell the smoke
You keep on saying the past is not dead
Come on and smell the smoke
You keep saying the past is not even past
You keep saying
We are, smoke
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This song is def a twin to "Unfair" (a song she has been quoted as saying is about falling in love with someone who is already in a relationship) so it is presumably about the same person. Given the references to buying an apartment and not being able to see her love interest "after tonight," it's most likely that she's moving away and she'll "wait a day to break the bad news" (i.e. notifying him that she's leaving once she's already gone).
And, of course, the fact that she sees in him a fellow "idealist" and "dreamer" (terms commonly given to people with the INFP personality on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)) portends that she'll always be left wondering if they would've been perfect together.
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The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
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"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.
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This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
you know, i don't think this is about a break up or even the holocaust, i think it's about the Bible.
yeah, it seems weird, but if ben and robert and darren don't beleieve in that stuff, it's very possible that this song is about them tearing up the Bible and burning it! that's weird!!
I agree with the other comments, it's the perfect metaphor, and it also illustrates what you often go through when you lose a friend or significant other... you sometimes need to get rid of diaries with entries about them, photographs, and old letters, just so you don't stumble over them again later and relive all of the pain, thus, you "burn" it all.
the smoke tends to get stuck in your clothes, though.<p><b><i>Edited by delial on November 29 2007, at 05:09AM</i></b></p>
NAlmost this entire album is about romantic relationships and breakups, so I think that the song is indeed about a breakup, or at least, one specific aspect of one.
You know how when you are in a long term relationships there are all these moments that you share that are just between you two and no one else? They seem so important and fundamental to shaping your personality and identity. But after you break up with that person, you have no one to talk about those memories with. No one else can really understand how those moments felt at the time, or what they meant, except the two of you. In fact no one else would ever really care. And now, without that person in your life, there's nothing to those moments but your own memories. Without the ability to ever again talk about those moments with someone who truly understands their personal meaning they loose some of their substance: as if they "never really happened", like they are just "smoke".
It's about the end of a relationship; all the things the couple savoured and would share with no-one else is now just history and no-one else could ever appreciate the love. It might be talking about a photo album but any of you who thinks it's about the holocaust clearly don't get Ben or Anna.
I've got this song stuck in my head at the moment.
I agree with BenFoldsFan here, sorry commonmary, its about a person tryin to forget a past relationship, by trying to forget it, and cause they will never be together again there will never be a new "book"
I have to agree, it's definitly about a bad break-up. Haven't you ever heard o people burning pictures and other things that remind them of relationships?
The Bible thing does work in a sense, but the other meaning has more to back it up.
my first instinct was that this song was about book burning and the ignorance behind it, but once i sat down and read the lyrics, i think what made me see how it was about the end of a relationship was the very last line: we are smoke. it has such a sense of finality. its wonderful that this song can make so much sense on a literal or symbolic level, and that the symbolism doesnt hit you over the head. its subtle.
I think this song is about the South. I think the book could be seen as a history book of sorts. The grief and pain of slavery and the Civil War and the KKK and all the other bad stuff the South desperately wants to deny ever happened. The South, and in fact the entire nation, also want to deny that slavery's reprecussions are still very much alive in today's society. The South wants to simply forget about all the blood on its hands; all the lynchings, etc. "All the people come and gone never really lived." All the people's lives ruined by that society they would just deny. Even the part about "here's the time I took the blame . . . Here's the time we didn't speak for years and years" I think is about the South in relationship to the North, and about Reconstruction. Maybe it's a little far-fetched and not as literal, but it hit me instantly when I first paid attention to the lyrics of this song. I'm sorry this isn't articulated very well, but I think if you go through and read the lyrics with that idea in mind it will make sense. And just to clarify, I think Ben is criticizing the idea that we can just pretend the past never happened and move on.
I love this song.
(to me) it's about a break up. it's painfully true, too.