I never want to see you in the raw and searing flesh
I don't ever want to hear you singing softly to the dead
I never want to feel your skin running warm along my side
I don't ever want to sink that way again
It would be easier to die
To die...

I'm tending the pyres of my frustrations
Burning leaves on buried dreams
Kneeling in to rake the ashes
I'm embering...you're smoldered out
My hands are free, my lungs are proud
Your forgiveness is a fading fiction
Your forgiveness is a fading fiction
These flames have never burned so high
I won't be staring in your eyes

I'm trying hard not to remember
The way the smoke drifts through the air
We'll all be dead come November
Four months out of every year
Every year...
I won't be staring in your eyes
I won't be staring in your eyes
In your eyes...
In your eyes, every year
In your eyes, every year...


Lyrics submitted by X405pastmidnight

The Raw and Searing Flesh song meanings
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8 Comments

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  • +1
    General Comment

    the Arm's ability to rock so fucking hard AND write wrenching , poetic lyrics amazes me. punk poetry my friends, the best of kinds. one of my favorites on Greatest Story. oh and basic, that is really touching about your uncle. funny how things line up in life

    xsylviaoon June 13, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Since no one has posted to this song, I get to be the first. I just have to say that I love this song each time i hear it. it really grows on me.

    sajamie81on February 02, 2005   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    sure it's a love song, but it reminds me of my uncle who passed away the day after thanksgiving (in november). i lived with him for ~4 months that year over the summer. we were planning on doing it again the next summer, having me live there again, but i cant spend that 4 months with him anymore. the verse about smoking 'tending the pyres of my frustrations' is in a sense how some of the family has dealt with the unexpected passing of my uncle, smoking. it's sad in a sense that it hits so close to home without even trying to. a beautiful song.

    basicon January 31, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Read Bulgakov's Master and Margarita.

    This is losely based off of that book and deals with the Devil. Also, the line about being dead in Novemeber is a reference to winters in Russia. They are deadly cold for four months, starting in November.

    ZombiesBewareon August 11, 2006   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Indeed it does. The flames are a reference to the Master's novel. The forgiveness:

    "They do not deserve the Light. They deserve peace."

    ThreexOveron March 31, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Indeed it does. The flames are a reference to the Master's novel. The forgiveness:

    "They do not deserve the Light. They deserve peace."

    ThreexOveron March 31, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    I always thought this song was more or less about loving someone so much that you didn't want to compromise what you had with them by intimate relations. I guess I suck.

    joetheinvincibleon May 01, 2007   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    read the book n you'll get it more joe

    Hobokenon October 17, 2007   Link

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