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.
I was wasting my time
Trying to fall in love
Disappointment came to me and
Booted me and bruised and hurt me
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
I was wasting my time
Looking for love
Someone must look at me
And see their sunlit dream
I was wasting my time
Praying for love
For a love that never comes from
Someone who does not exist and
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
Let me live before I die
Not me, not I!
I was wasting my life
Always thinking about myself
Someone on the deathbed said
"There are other sorrows too"
I was driving my car
I crashed and broke my spine
So yes, there are things worse in life than
Never being someone's sweetie
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
As for me I'm okay
For now anyway
Trying to fall in love
Disappointment came to me and
Booted me and bruised and hurt me
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
I was wasting my time
Looking for love
Someone must look at me
And see their sunlit dream
I was wasting my time
Praying for love
For a love that never comes from
Someone who does not exist and
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
Let me live before I die
Not me, not I!
I was wasting my life
Always thinking about myself
Someone on the deathbed said
"There are other sorrows too"
I was driving my car
I crashed and broke my spine
So yes, there are things worse in life than
Never being someone's sweetie
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
That's how people grow up
As for me I'm okay
For now anyway
Lyrics submitted by gangoffour389
That's How People Grow Up Lyrics as written by Martin James Boorer Steven Morrissey
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
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I was driving my car, I crashed and broke my spine, So yes, there are things worse in life than never being some-one's sweetie.
Morrissey is self mocking his classic Smiths song There Is A Light, mocking the romanticism in getting killed by the double decker bus and the ten tonne truck by now 23 years on making the car crash practical and mundane rather than escapist and beautiful. This song is him really severing some of the imagery and ideas he had perpetrated in his youth.