Mesopotamia

Killer song.

Apparently, Borland wrote this song after waking up from a graphic dream about Zombies. I have no idea if that pertains to any of the lyrics...but it's food for thought.

Im new to Black Light Burns but this song is wicked.

It's about the Iraq War.

he is talking about how he would give all the wonders of Mesopotamia the first great civilization in the world for you thus the I'd give it all just to be with you. I think it is like the most badass love song ever hahaha

If one looks at this song from a vampirical point of view (as I've come to suspect many of BLB's songs are) this song tells the story of a vampire:

"Face down in the bottom of a river Swimming with the dead makes me wanna shiver If you really wanna know, I'd rather just drown alone"

The song is about a man in Mesopotamia possibly during one of it's conquests or invasions ends up dead, face down on the bottom of one of Mesopotamias rivers( Mesopotamia basically translates as "Land between 2 rivers"). I guess, swimming with the dead means many others are dead and in the river as well. BUT since the Mesopotamians believed that all life was created from water and worshipped such gods it could also just be a description of his experience of drowning/dying with all the other dead in the Mesopotamian afterlife floating around him as he dies. I tend to lean to the former more than the latter because of the wording of the second verse:

"Clay fingers reaching for the ceiling Once numb, now tingling with feeling You'll see in the end that nothing really gets away. And I'd give it all up just to be with you."

Mesopotamia in latter years also had among others, a large Christian populace. the use of the second verse's "Clay Fingers" suggest that he is man made of clay/mud, essentially a christian association and when you get down to it, Christianity is also the basis for the most modern idea of what a vampire is and how it looks/acts/feeds etc. The second verse basically describes the man is waking up..coming back to life. He is reaching for the ceiling means he is waking up in a coffin, the celing being the coffin or tomb lid. Burial was used in Mespotomia.

"You took back the mud from which you're made And threw it at me like a fucking grenade You keep cutting my throat, then you ask me if i'm feeling ok"

The first line also eludes to the "man from mud" association, meaning he lost his life but was given it back but it wasn't the same, he is now a vampire. As the years passhe is still in Mespotomaia though it is always under seige or in battle, possible he lives many lives there, the last two lines suggest he is wounded in battle and taken for dead many times.. He both loves and hates this land.

This city is just like any other They keep blowing it up, then building up another If you look in the whole, you'll see it ain't going away And I'd give it all up to just to be with you

Now so many years later he is still there, and though Mespottamia has fallen many times, been conqured many times he has seen it rebuilt and changed and still he sees with ancient eyes how little it really has changed..and still he yearns for the old Mespotamia he knew when he was alive., before he became a vampire..and The city creeps him out, he misses the old days but he loves the city so much that it burns and no place else is like home to him.