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.
Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home
Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost
Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home
All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can
Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done
Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts over old dead grass
Was never much but we made the most
Welcome home
Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names but most do not
If you find one, please let me know what piece I've lost
Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home
All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can
Here, beneath my lungs, I feel your thumbs press into my skin again
Lyrics submitted by Mechanical Bird
Welcome Home Lyrics as written by Benjamin Cooper
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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What this song means to me is that you shouldn't focus on negative things. You shouldn't live in the past. I mean, sure, something might have left a few "scars", but they fall off eventually! Instead of being all negative, you should remember the better things, and find the good in what happened. To me, I think he used to be very stand-off-ish because of something that happened to him in his past. In the song, though, it's basically saying how he decided to finally let go of them and move on. And the thing about "scars" is, you basically chose whether to have them or not. If you never let them go, and always dwell on them in a way, they won't heal; they'll only leave and ugly scar on you. But if you treat it before it becomes worse, and if you don't make a big deal out of it, it will soon heal correctly and fall off.
So the guy is saying, do what you will with what once was, I don;t care; It's over. Done. And when they say "Welcome Home", they mean, the old you has returned, so I guess they mean it figuratively, but he describes his home so it seems like they mean it in a literal sense. But it just means, you weren't the same after what had happened, but you let it go and only remember the good things that happened to you. The cheerful, happy memories. So the person you really, truly are is finally back. After some soul searching, you've returned.
Welcome home.