Fly Trapped in a Jar

Pretty good song, one of the best off the new album.

well I was walking just a little bit sideways and you were walking sideways too, well I hadn't learned when a front door can be used,

that parts pretty sweet.

Yeah, and if we don't buy the album, they'll be FORCED to make more music to make ends meet!

Ah, I'm gonna buy it, but I really have no issue with people who don't. That's what T-shirts and concerts are for -- it's not like album sales are a band's only source of income.

And now that I've brought up a lot of things this band hates, I'll just say that there's a few corrections I'd like to make..

"Of part and parcel, so well we're already dead,"

should be

"Oh, pardon, pardon, sir Well, we're already dead"

..at least I think so. I don't know, "part and parcel" just doesn't do anything for me.. maybe if someone would explain why they think it should be that way, otherwise, it doesn't seem to fit in with the song. Not that "pardon, pardon, sir" does, mind you, but hey, that's what I hear.

And

"we had got these dogs so we didn't read what the sign read, how simple enough you taught me that the ground needs to be fed,"

sounds more like

"We had darkened doors So we didn't read what the sign read Though simple enough It was to me really tough The ground needs to be fed"

or something like that.

"well two feet of us and two of our hands and our flies trapped in a jar,

should be

"Well, two feet above each of our heads There was a fly trapped in a jar"

And right after that

"so every single one of us hit the ground,"

should be

"So every single one of us Fed the ground"

its definately of part and parcel and that continues on with the theme first expressed in parting of the sensory. We are made with dead parts (we steal the carbon of dead things). Thus, we are literally already dead because we have stolen our organic material from dead things. The spoken word funk part has many typos too the first one that sticks out to me is the first line where Gary was tired and drunk and not on trial.

gary is not isaac's father. he is just a character in the story of we were dead. his name is mentioned in we've got everything as well.

I always thought it was gravity

"Gravity needs to be fed" instead of "Ground needs to be fed"

cause isaac seems to have an obsession with gravity

Hey, tenserock, we get the idea, it pisses you off, now please SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

its not political. isaac said that he was never gonna write political songs because they die so fast and they are pretty lame. its like they mean something one day but the next day they are just stupid and out dated,

For me, understanding the meaning of the human story part of the song involves visualizing the fly trapped in a jar story.

Imagine the horror of having no-one care about you, even those that put you in the jar in the first place don't care anymore and you've been left on the shelf. Contemplate that all you have is one wing, and that isn't enough to escape out of the jar. The open lid of the jar is torturing you. You're even thinking of how "I'm going to thank myself when it's finally over." Ultimately the fly has no chance and is doomed to die "We were already dead."

The human story is the same sort of predicament, although the circumstances are obviously completely different.

You've all put very intelligent suggestions. This is solely what the song means to me. I don't expect anyone else to feel the same way.

As for the meaning, I've always thought of it as living in a small town were everyone hates you, but you were too poor to get out. So you lived your life there waiting for death and die without really ever living, hence "we were already dead".

I used to listen to this song a lot when I was in my later teenage years. It was my favorite song on the album. I would say a part of music's artistic value is the ability to interpret its imagery, poetry and emotional tones to your own life and subjective experience, right? The "one wing wasn't even enough to leave" line always resonated with me so heavily as that's how I had been feeling for years on end in a symbolic sense. I was sick of my verbally and emotionally abusive parents who constantly scapegoated me and the shitty small town I lived in that had terrible and toxic social dynamics. I was heavily bullied by schoolmates and by people I once called my friend. I did nothing to these people. I felt like my will to leave was just one wing, but it wasn't enough. My mother made it impossible for me to leave, I couldn't get a job, let alone a car, she was ruining my efforts of trying to succeed at community college.. and on and on.. I guess I'm saying the other wing to me was the practical side of getting free.. money, possessions, etc. I did not have that other wing to escape the jar, a.k.a. the present situation I was in.