The Mountain Goats

Trick Mirror

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Trick Mirror Lyrics

Seventeen years ago
They told me to teach you everything I know
Let the fire rain down
Rain down

Watched it flare up inside his heart
Saw it tearing him completely apart
Head to toe
I know

And blood will run
Through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean

Fourteen years ago tonight
Watched him tearing through the garden
Killing everything in sight
I let my curiosity
Get the best of me

I saw the sourceless anger eating at him from inside
No one around him to stem the rising tide
Evil from his head down to his feet
Quinine's bitter, sugar's sweet

And blood will run
Through the streets of Rome today
And roll across the ocean

Submitted by

shewouldnt On May 09, 2006

The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton

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Mellow_Harsher

2019-08-26 20:52:10

shewouldnt

Submitter

2006-05-09 18:58:16

1 Meaning

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Cover art for Trick Mirror lyrics by Mountain Goats, The

by el-cristobal

18y ago

Greath MG song! Since nobody so far has written anything about this I´ll just go ahead and give you my view of the whole thing. To get its meaning it´s important to know who seneca was. He was a roman philosopher but more importantly he was emperor Nero´s (you know the crazy guy that burned down rome and slaughtered christians) private teacher. So the person in the song, the person that has "anger eating at him from inside" is Nero and because of his position of power nobody could stop him in becoming the bad person that he was. ("No one around him to stem the rising tide"). And as his private teacher Seneca should have brought him up to do better, but instead he marvels at what man is able to do if he knows no moral standards. ("I let my curiosity get the best of me") So this is what I get from the song and once you know who Seneca was and what Nero did it´s pretty clear I think.

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