Gullah

well a lot of you say it has to do with religion.... however I believe it has to do with war.. take for instance : Yellowcake..... (also called urania) is a type of uranium ... lets just think about that for a moment....... sending our the black bird is a kin to sending out a canary to prove air quality. Also- NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR) is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. NWR broadcasts official Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I think its post apocalyptic. just my opinion.....

There's a lot of references to the legend of the Great Flood. The blackbird and dove were sent out from Noah's Ark to find dry land as the floodwaters receded. Babel is the biblical name for Babylonia, a region in Mesopotamia, which is the modern country of Iraq, and the origin of the oldest written epic poem known today, the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic includes a description of a great flood which probably inspired the account of the flood of Noah.

When this song was being recorded, the US was occupying Iraq. The war was justified partly due to allegations that Iraq was importing yellowcake uranium as a source for nuclear weapons. However, the yellowcake that Iraq did have in its possession needed a lot of refining before it could be used in nukes. And in any case, the Iraqi military abandoned warehouses full of barrels of yellowcake during the invasion. Iraqi civilians found the yellowcake and only knowing that it was something important enough to be guarded by the Army, took it from the warehouses. Several people were poisoned by it. Lighting Roman Candles on the Yellowcake is a metaphor for the triumphalism of the Bush Administration following the invasion, as the poison was unknowingly spread among innocent people. And while they were doing this, they were shaking the American public on down for money and power.

The Serengeti verse is a reference to what is called the "Serengeti Strategy" by interests allied to the Bush administration, where they would publicly attack scientists working in Climate research, to make examples of them and discredit them. The flood is all of the woes that come from this disregard for human health and welfare.

Great song. Can't decipher it, but it's awesome anyway.

it definitely has to do with religions. I think it may be to point out how churches are good and all, but they're not everything. Gotta be a good person. And even the lines about getting "shook down", I believe are about indulgences. After death, they're gonna cheat you. I realize this isn't very coherent, but, it's 2AM and it makes sense to me.

I think this refers to the plight of freed slaves who were allowed to settle on former plantation lands during the end of the Civil War, particularly in or near the Gullah region. Many former slaves became volunteers in the Union Army and were promised the right to cultivate former plantations but many were evicted following the collapse of Reconstruction policies.

The biblical story of the great flood has often been used an allegory for the end of slavery, with Noah's delivery from the waters likened to freedom. Read in this light, the perspective of the song moves from the difficulties of settlement facing newly freed slaves to the former land owner who comes to evict them. The last lines, describing the end of the flood, is a powerful metaphor for delivery from hardship.

"Sudden movement on the Serengeti" seems to be a reference to western expansion into Africa in Gods name.