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.
I bled on a pivotal stretch
Like a clockwork Christ
Bears sore stigmata, bored
And as I threw Job, I drove
Myself to a martyred wretch
To see if I drew pity
Or pretty litanies from the Lord
So the plot sickened
With the coming of days
Ill millennia thickened
With the claret I sprayed
And though they saw red
I left a dirty white stain
A splintered know in the grain
On Eden's marital aid
So glad for the madness
I walked the walls naked to the moon
In Sodom and Babylon
And through rich whores and corridors
Of the Vatican
I led a sordid Borgia on
I read the Urilia text
So that mortals wormed
As livebait for the dead
And as I broke hope, I choked
Another pope with manna peel
Dictating to DeSade
In the dark entrails of the Bastille
And as he wrote, I smote
A royal blow to the heads of France
And in the sheen of guillotines
I saw others, fallen, dance
I was an incurable
Necromantic old fool
A phagadaena that crawled
Drooling over the past
A rabid wolf in shawl
A razor's edge to the rule
That the stars overall
Were never destined to last
So glad for the madness
I furnaced dreams, a poet, for of sleep
Turning sermons with the smell
On Witchfinder fingers
Where bad memories lingered
Burning, as when Dante
Was freed to map Hell
I sired schemes and the means
To catch sight of the seams
And the vagaries inbetween...
And midst the lips and the curls
Of this cunt of a world
In glimpses I would see
A nymph with eyes for me
Eyes of fire that set all life aflame
Lights that surpassed art
In sight, that no intense device of pain
Could prise their secrets from my heart
I knew not her name
Though her kiss was the same
Without a whisper of shame
As either Virtue or Sin's
And pressed to Her curve
I felt my destiny swerve
From damnation reserved
To a permanent grin...
So glad for the madness
Like a clockwork Christ
Bears sore stigmata, bored
And as I threw Job, I drove
Myself to a martyred wretch
To see if I drew pity
Or pretty litanies from the Lord
So the plot sickened
With the coming of days
Ill millennia thickened
With the claret I sprayed
And though they saw red
I left a dirty white stain
A splintered know in the grain
On Eden's marital aid
So glad for the madness
I walked the walls naked to the moon
In Sodom and Babylon
And through rich whores and corridors
Of the Vatican
I led a sordid Borgia on
I read the Urilia text
So that mortals wormed
As livebait for the dead
And as I broke hope, I choked
Another pope with manna peel
Dictating to DeSade
In the dark entrails of the Bastille
And as he wrote, I smote
A royal blow to the heads of France
And in the sheen of guillotines
I saw others, fallen, dance
I was an incurable
Necromantic old fool
A phagadaena that crawled
Drooling over the past
A rabid wolf in shawl
A razor's edge to the rule
That the stars overall
Were never destined to last
So glad for the madness
I furnaced dreams, a poet, for of sleep
Turning sermons with the smell
On Witchfinder fingers
Where bad memories lingered
Burning, as when Dante
Was freed to map Hell
I sired schemes and the means
To catch sight of the seams
And the vagaries inbetween...
And midst the lips and the curls
Of this cunt of a world
In glimpses I would see
A nymph with eyes for me
Eyes of fire that set all life aflame
Lights that surpassed art
In sight, that no intense device of pain
Could prise their secrets from my heart
I knew not her name
Though her kiss was the same
Without a whisper of shame
As either Virtue or Sin's
And pressed to Her curve
I felt my destiny swerve
From damnation reserved
To a permanent grin...
So glad for the madness
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cnt, it's not black metal. Cradle of Filth is Cradle of Filth. And that's it.