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.
In a sweater poorly knit and an unsuspecting smile
little Moses drifts downstream in the Nile
A fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh
and I'm carried helpless by my floating basket raft
Your flavor in my mind, back and forth between
sweeter than any wine as bitter as mustard greens
and it's light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
Go plow some other field, try and forget my name
We'll see what harvest yields, and, supposing I'd do the same
I planted rows of peas, by the first week of July
they should have come up to my knees
but they were maybe ankle high
Take the fingers from your flute and weave your colored yarns
and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars
And the books are overdue, and the goats are underfed
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
You're a door without a key, a field without a fence
You made a holy fool of me and I've thanked you ever since.
And if she comes circling back we'll end where we'd begun
like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one
But if I'm a crown without a king, if I'm a broken open seed
if I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head,
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
I do not exist
Only You exist
I do not exist
little Moses drifts downstream in the Nile
A fumbling reply, an awkward rigid laugh
and I'm carried helpless by my floating basket raft
Your flavor in my mind, back and forth between
sweeter than any wine as bitter as mustard greens
and it's light and dark as honeydew and pumpernickel bread
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
Go plow some other field, try and forget my name
We'll see what harvest yields, and, supposing I'd do the same
I planted rows of peas, by the first week of July
they should have come up to my knees
but they were maybe ankle high
Take the fingers from your flute and weave your colored yarns
and boil down your fruit to preserves in mason jars
And the books are overdue, and the goats are underfed
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
You're a door without a key, a field without a fence
You made a holy fool of me and I've thanked you ever since.
And if she comes circling back we'll end where we'd begun
like two pennies on the train track the train crushed into one
But if I'm a crown without a king, if I'm a broken open seed
if I come without a thing, then I come with all I need
No boat out in the blue, no place to rest your head,
The trap I set for you seems to have caught my leg instead!
I do not exist
Only You exist
I do not exist
Lyrics submitted by you fail me, edited by GunslingerXiX
In a Sweater Poorly Knit Lyrics as written by
Lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, TERRORBIRD PUBLISHING LLC
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