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.
Poison Oak, some boyhood bravery
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
When a telephone was a tin can on a string
And I fell asleep with you still ctalking to me
You said you weren't afraid to die
In Polaroids you were dressed in women's clothes
Were you made ashamed, why'd you lock them in the drawer?
Well I don't think that I ever loved you more
Than when you turned away
When you slammed the door
When you stole the car drove towards Mexico
And you wrote bad checks just to fill your arm
I was young enough, I still believed in war
Well let the poets cry themselves to sleep
And all their tearful words would turn back into steam
But me I'm a single cell on a serpents tongue
There's a muddy field where a garden was
And I'm glad you got away
But I'm still stuck out here
My clothes are soaking wet from your brothers tears
And I never thought this life was possible
You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for
The end of paralysis, I was a statuette
Now I'm drunk as hell on a piano bench
And when I press the keys it all gets reversed
The sound of loneliness makes me happier
Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28, edited by kangaroo98, darkeyelewj
Poison Oak Lyrics as written by Conor Oberst
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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i originally thought his dad, but that wouldn't make sense. maybe he had a chilhood girlfriend acted older that she was?.....