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'm nauseous, or maybe just inspired
So truthful, I begin to tire,
No less then everything.
No haiku, no paper packaged thing,
Patronized you harmonize, a thorax rattles so,
Like idealistic jargon every self-respecting hopeful should know.
I know the road to everything,
I know it goes right off a cliff,
Nothing, nothing, nothing is forever
Sympathy I do indeed intake in bulk amounts,
For reasoning obscure it seems too numerous to count,
And so it goes the lesser chose to crawl through narrow gates,
Bulimic thin the winding road now empty into lakes,
A pulse is found, and so we drown, and sing for this duration,
From rows and rows of teeth we're spared, these artery serrations.
Emptiness I must impress upon you in its grandeur,
My stagnant heart, it comes apart, as selfishness demands her,
To sound a note from scores I wrote,
And offer them unto thee,
For melodies now synthesized, your love it lives within me.
Nothing is forever.
So truthful, I begin to tire,
No less then everything.
No haiku, no paper packaged thing,
Patronized you harmonize, a thorax rattles so,
Like idealistic jargon every self-respecting hopeful should know.
I know the road to everything,
I know it goes right off a cliff,
Nothing, nothing, nothing is forever
Sympathy I do indeed intake in bulk amounts,
For reasoning obscure it seems too numerous to count,
And so it goes the lesser chose to crawl through narrow gates,
Bulimic thin the winding road now empty into lakes,
A pulse is found, and so we drown, and sing for this duration,
From rows and rows of teeth we're spared, these artery serrations.
Emptiness I must impress upon you in its grandeur,
My stagnant heart, it comes apart, as selfishness demands her,
To sound a note from scores I wrote,
And offer them unto thee,
For melodies now synthesized, your love it lives within me.
Nothing is forever.
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"Well… like Llama Eats Giraffe that song is about a nihilist who is contemplating other philosophies like Christianity and things like that. Looking at like what the two have in common because like nihilism and Christianity have similar governing properties… like nihilist believe that there’s no hope in the world and there is no point to anything and Christian believe the same thing but we have one hope. We believe there is no hope in the world and everything’s pointless and everything’s going to pass away but we do have that one thing. Nihilists don’t have that one thing. So this guy in the song is comparing the two things and it’s like these two bizarre animals that have so much in common but it’s constantly like one’s going to get the other and I just like llamas and giraffes so I figured it was a chance for me to use them in a song title."