Runners Dial Zero

No comments? Figures, since you'll only find this song on the import version of Mutatations.

This song has a really ominous feel, like there's a storm coming. I think the lyrics are about knowing you've made the wrong decisions, and are heading straight for disaster.

For me this song has something to do with some tragic car accident. A group of friends were coming back from partying disappointed by the fact that nothing really cool happened into what it was expected to be a great partying night:

"When day is done we'll ride Who cares what we find Another misspent night We thought we got it right"

It was really cold out there and suddenly the accident happened : "The driver lost a wheel The ice turned into steel"

Some of the guys or girls in the car, died in the accident in the hands of the survivors: "They shivered like refugees Way down on our knees"

With all the tragedy, the survivors - the narrator is one of them - just lay beside the wrecked car. Apparently they hit a house that caught fire and are wondering wether there was someone in the house who got injured: "But when the building's burned Was there some concerned"

I guess that the mother who lays in bed, is precisely someone who was sleeping in the house and that got awaken by the sound of the crash. Or maybe she's the mother of someone involved in the accident and suddenly felt that something terrible happened: "Mother laid in bed What was it she said?"

What I really don't get, is the "we slit our throats"... maybe the survivors decided to kill themselves and die like the rest of their fiends... "By the dried up stram We slit our throats and dreamed"

Finally there's this last paragraph: "Gather all your worldly jewels And scatter them like fools Don't you make a fuss Days so perilous"

That I interpret as : don't always save your stuff for the future, 'cause each day is so perilous, that you had better live if like if it was the last one, so spend your money while you can (scatter you jewels like a fool).

"Runner" equals participant, a life, a soul. "Dial Zero" in the olden days meant "talk with the (phone) operator". In this case "dial zero" is to talk to God the big operator in the sky. That is to die or to be killed. This song appears to be expressing regret and disillusionment about how their life turned out. "We" expresses the fact that not just the narrator is going down this dark path but many of us are being broken in the same way. We thought we got it right, but in the end we hear echoes of long gone voices "mother" who tried to steer us towards truth but we wasted our time "night' and ended up in a very bad place "the dried up stream" and now all our dreams are gone and the things we held dear "jewels" have proven to be worthless to the owner.