By the Pain I See In Others

I actually dont see any sex in this... and nothing about god or whatever. In my opinion this is about a demonic posession or the fight for sanity. It is about a man who is ruled by his dark deeds and his inner demon who took control of him. At first he fights him but then finally accepts his fate and agrees to it. He himself feels superior about the other humans around him. The most important thing in this song is the difference in the two or three voices that are used. But I'll point that out:

The Inner Demon: "Let me taste Let me feel I need to know what you keep inside No need to speak Just let it be Carry out this wish for me let nothing interfere " -He gives the orders and commands the guy to do as he says with no interferance. He knows all the inner deeds and wishes of the guy and represents all the bad things that we keep in mind that eventuall consume us.

The Guy: "Rise to submission I'm still beneath in the soil " -He fights for sanity, clinging to the false believe that this inner demon is no part of him. He says, that it is still him who is doing all the things and that he is not commanded by the demon.

The Inner Demon: "Discard your clothes Let loose you hair We're intertwined forever and have always been" -Discarding the clothes means to reveal what the guy has beneath the sings you see from the outside. He orders the man to look at himself and take away all that hides his dark wishes and needs. The demon says that they - the guy and the demon - are one and the same person, just parts of his personality that he kept hidden. "Say the word And I'll depart Upon your lips dwells nothing but the meaning of my cause " -The demon says that he will leave if the guy wishes to, only to show him that the man actually does not want the demon to go away. With everything the man says he confirms the claims of the demon, that both are the same person.

The Inner Demon: "And so comes the dark Vibrant as ever before Flowers already withered In this endless winter of souls " -The man has accepted his fate, his dark sides and seems to welcome him. For him and his sanity, or his humanity, the endless winter of souls has come to consume the warmth. "Vibrant as ever before" actually says that he, the demon, has always been there and will always be.

The Man: "Outside in the park The days move along And nothing ever changes They have nothing on us And we've always knew That nothing ever changes " -The man who has now accepted his fate walks around and watches the other humans, looking down on them. Everything is as it should be, as it always has been

The Man and the demon: "Rise to submission I'm still beneath in the soil This is ours alone Feeding of the warmth Lured out from inside Depending on the life blood" -Despite his knowledge he still clings to the believe that it is actually him which is, if you dont count the splitted personality, indeed true. Still the demon commands him to spill blood - see it metaphorically if you want to - because that's exactly what they both need. This dark deeds then have lured the demon out from the inside.

The rest explains itself I think... The song and the album is actually not about a serial killer but about the crack in human minds. It is about dark deeds and splitted personalities, about all the failure in men which is already pointed out in Blackwater Park and then is continued in Ghost Reveries. Akerfeldt himself said in the end of an interview, that he always wanted to do something about demonic possession and how this refers to the personality of men, just like he explained in this song. The key to the song is in my opinion the changes of voices that stand for the man and his demon. The part with the clean vocals represents the unity between those two faction and how he has accepted his inner demon. This interpretation goes very well with the titel of the song, at least in my opinion...

Over all I really love the song if you dont count the inversed part in the end of it.

People made so devoid of emotion only lust gives reason to live.

I wonder if Mikael is a fan of Brian Lumley and the Necroscope series, because this song perfectly fits with book 1. In short, a vampire is captured and buried alive underground in chains of silver, he's given a second chance to live by luring a young couple to his burial site and using his psychic influence to get them to have sex. Since she's a virgin, she spills blood into the ground and he feeds on it, this also gives the vampire control over them. I dunno just a thought, great song, great books too :D

Definetly one of my favorites fron Opeth. I originally thought Necroscope however Deliverance's other lyrics seem to describe the life of Jesus Christ. In relation, By the Pain I See in Other's seems to be philosophical of human nature. All human's are sinners and shall rot away, so why not rot with the Lord? See this is the nature of Mikael's poetic genius. These lyrics may seem grim yet they seem to have a holy alternitave meaning.

Great interpretation moonlapse, but I dont think any of the guys in Opeth are christian.. correct me if I'm wrong

Ok, I'm going to try to interpret the whole album so...

Deliverance I think is about the psyche of a serial killer. Wreath describes how is is slowly put into insanity by factors of his past, in fact the blissful singing could represent a symptom of multiple personalitities. Deliverance is the Killer going on the rampage, with his other side saying "I'm good" even though the protagonist know it's eveil. A fair judgement is regret about slaying someone close to him, maybe someone trying to help. "Master's apprentices" is him basically giving up, and letting the other side take over. "By the pain I see in others" is Shows how the alternate persona WILL NOT STOP!!! And the carnivaly sounding part hints he is an attention to detail, and is hard to catch because of that. The eerie sounding part at the end is the oblivion that the protagonist is in and will reside in forever. This is one of many interpretations, but many more are plausible, simply because Akerfeldt is such a great lyricist.

The "chanting" at the end, is the song Master Apprentices backwards. If you play that part of the song backwards it says this:

Soothing trance Colors fade And disappear Ethereal light Showing me what I can do without

Fading away And leaving Long for sleep Closer now Lead the way into death

It kinda feels like a romantic song. Very gothy like most of Akerfeldt's lyrics, but basically I feel like it's a romantic song about how the lyrical subject and his/her partner feel about everyone else. Basically sheep only "rising to submission" - to submit to anything just to get ahead in life, having no integrity, while the couple happily feed off of each other's "warmth" and watch people in the park as they do their boring things over and over (the literal "Pain I See in Others"

I feel this song(& whole album) is about the fight between the ego and the soul. By ego i mean who a person thinks he is, he's personal pride & self absorption, & by soul i mean the vital core, the part of you that knows right from wrong, regardless of society or laws.The part of you that hurts. I also believe this album is in reverse chronological order, as if you read the last song first and so on it paints a story.the thing that gave me a clue to this is how the end of this song is in reverse. I am going to interpret all the songs on this album so you should read my coments on the other songs to realy see what i mean. their order in reverse is - By the pain i see in others, Masters apprentices, For absent friends, A fair judgement, Deliverance , Wreath.

"By the pain i see in others" The first clue is in the title, The person in the song see's all the pain in others and wonders what is the cause for so many people to be so unhappy, even the people who seem to have it all, like fame or money, are no happier than the rest .

"Let me taste Let me feel I need to know what you keep inside No need to speak Just let it be Carry out this wish for me let nothing interfere" This is the persons soul talking to him.It is telling the person to let it free, to let it have control.

"Rise to submission I'm still beneath in the soil" The soul is again saying the ego must surrender as it is still under its control.

"Discard your clothes" The soul is telling the person to discard he's subtefuges(clothes),to stop hiding.

"Let loose you hair" This line is telling him to stop trying to control everything

"We're intertwined forever and have always been" this line is pretty self explanatory

"Say the word And I'll depart Upon your lips dwells nothing but the meaning of my cause " This is the soul saying that the ego has complete controll over it.

"And so comes the dark Vibrant as ever before" Then something bad happens to the person to make him drive he's soul even further down.

"Flowers already withered In this endless winter of souls" the flowers signify happiness & it is a winter of souls as everybody ignores there soul.

"Outside in the park The days move along And nothing ever changes" This is simply a description of how things stay the same, it may also be a reference to the song Blackwater park.

"They have nothing on us And we've always knew That nothing ever changes Rise to submission I'm still beneath in the soil This is ours alone" The plural is used here as both the ego and soul make up the person and how this life is theirs alone.

"Feeding off the warmth Lured out from inside Depending on the life blood" This is explaining how both the ego and the soul rely for life from the person, they need he's warmth and life blood.& they arise from inside the persons mind to control that mind.

"Silently Whispering Move in me and set me free." This is the person saying he doesn't want hes soul to be restrained anymore, but he is whispering it as he is unsure ,he's ego has made him doubt himself.

Sex! It's about (very romantic) sex!