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.
Bulimic rainbows vomit what? Burn Piano Island Burn! Coconut pupils never shut? Burn Piano Island Burn! Jigsaw babies and their bamboo stilts? Burn Piano Island Burn! Charred toucans weaving their black sky quilt? Burn Piano Island Burn! The sea shells scream out celestial code. Melting on the shore inside a flame sno globe. Burn Burn So burn Piano island! Torch the treasure! Torch the shovels! Torch these hands dipped in gold lacquer, Torch the finger-prints painting a violence portrait on spinal wings. I buried my bride of eight inch fingers neck deep in the hungry quicksand. I buried out children of pineapple skin where the generic sunsets sparkle so bland. I split my grandmother like a rotten papaya... our fright to pollenate the flowers of fire. I vomited my skeleton and donated it to the war mausoleum... I cut my will and testament along the scar tissue seam. I packaged my heart and fed-ex'd it to the octopus queen. Burn Piano Island Burn! Soured Palm trees sputter waxy wax stink. Burn Piano Island Burn! Boiling lagoons chewing bubble gum pink? Burn Piano Island Burn! The vikatin volcano spews and salivates? It's belly bloated like a pre-teen pregnancy? I fed its limp indifferent walls tales of an ark haunted with the five howls, I tied a nervous noose of piano wire and wrapped it around the mocking throat of the past. It's head erupted like a rabid roman candle as I kicked the stamp from underneath. Burn Piano Island Burn and drown all your fucking riddles down the throat of the sea. This one man raft won't be coming back so don't talk out of tune to me. From a distance the fornication of fear and flames twindles so pretty.
Lyrics submitted by rjbucs28
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