its amazing how far music can come.. 24 years after it released and its one of the most heartfelt songs ive heard
This isn't your song, this isn't your music
How can there be wrong, when by committee
They choose it all, they choose it all
You're gonna grow old, you're gonna grow cold
Bearing signs on the avenues, for your own personal Waterloo
You're bearing signs on the avenue for your own personal Waterloo, now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory, and precious territory, and precious territory
This isn't our song, this isn't even a musical
Think life is too long, to be a whale in a cubicle
Nails under your cuticle
Gonna grow old, you're gonna grow so cold
Before the sun can deliver you, you're bearing signs on the avenue
You're bearing signs for your own personal Waterloo, now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory, and precious territory, and precious territory
How can there be wrong, when by committee
They choose it all, they choose it all
You're gonna grow old, you're gonna grow cold
Bearing signs on the avenues, for your own personal Waterloo
You're bearing signs on the avenue for your own personal Waterloo, now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory, and precious territory, and precious territory
This isn't our song, this isn't even a musical
Think life is too long, to be a whale in a cubicle
Nails under your cuticle
Gonna grow old, you're gonna grow so cold
Before the sun can deliver you, you're bearing signs on the avenue
You're bearing signs for your own personal Waterloo, now
We'll fight, we'll fight
We'll fight for your music halls and dying cities
They'll fight, they'll fight
They'll fight for your neural walls and plasticities
And precious territory, and precious territory, and precious territory
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More Featured Meanings
Siberian Kiss
Glassjaw
Glassjaw
The Spy
Doors, The
Doors, The
Like a lot of the other comments are saying, I think this mainly about voyeurism. If the song was about his girlfriend, then why would he use the word spy. If you are a spy it means you shouldn't be caught, that is kind of the whole point, and if you are a voyeur, the whole point of the pleasure you get from it, is the fact that the other people don't know you are watching them. See a bit of a connection there?
Grand Theft Auto
Insane Ian
Insane Ian
The way this song speaks to me🥺🥺when I sing it I feel like I relate
Step
Ministry
Ministry
Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
The part about the whale in the cubicle is about being confined. The image is of a huge animal crammed in a tiny space. "Nails under your cuticles" is another image conveying the same idea of confinement. You normally think of fingernails as being exposed (free), but he is describing the part confined under the dead skin of the cuticles.
The chorus follows the same theme, where the "neural walls" I think represent figurative walls built to confine your mind. Plasticities is like plastic cities, the antithesis of the "dying cities" of culture described in the first part of the chorus, where everything is plastic, prepackaged, impersonal, and efficient. I think the song is mostly a statement about the confinement of the music industry, both on the art it produces and on the public in general as listeners, to whom it is easier to sell music that can be neatly classified and marketed, and that is simple enough to understand immediately. I think the song can also be applied to the culture as a whole, though.