There's A War Going On For Your Mind

I can't help but want to go into every single line of this short song. I learned long ago that, with any good song, every line and word serves a purpose, and this song is full of it. The trickiest part is that they use a lot of words people might not know as metaphors, so I'll just simplify each line so that the message is obvious. I'll do the first stanza or whatever for right now.

"There's a war going on for your mind" -Person above me already addressed that.

"Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks" -A maven is someone who is incredibly skilled in just about everything. A journalist used to be known as a "Jack of all trades" because of the wide variety of people and issues they dealt with. "Media maven" is someone in the media with a formidable array of skills. "Surgical" can be defined as "very precise", so "Media mavens mount surgical strikes" means that the incredibly talented Media is making very precise moves and attacks on us from "trapper keeper collages [a "trapper keeper" is a brand of loose leaf binders] and online magazine racks." That last part must be alluding to the move of informative media going from print to online.

"Cover girl cutouts throw up pop-up ads" -This is likely talking about the typical advertising strategy to include an attractive woman smiling ridiculously or dressed scantily for the sake of calling our attention to a body spray, car insurance, or even yogurt.

Infecting victims with silicone shrapnel -The media, intentionally or not, ends up defining "beauty" for many people in society. The phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" seems to mean little these days as it's not uncommon for Hollywood or fad producing corporations to decide what's hot and what's not. Silicone is used in many things, including plastic surgery as the gel for breast implants. Gee, ever notice how all the girls in advertisements and TV shows have huge boobs and "perfect" bodies? Well, everyone else notices, and they want to be Just Like Them. If you can't get it naturally, why not just see the neighborhood surgeon so that you can fit societies definition of "Beauty" rather than your own?

Worldwide passenger pigeons deploy paratroopers -Not a hundred percent sure on this one, but I think it's just using imagery. Pigeons were once used as a common way to move messages around, and I imagine "Worldwide passenger -thing that flies-" makes many people think of giant airplanes. "Deploy paratroopers" gives an image and feel of war. So, armed soldiers using large planes for war? Possible 9/11 reference, anyone?

Now it's raining pornography Lovers take shelter -Sort of seems to tie in with the line above, but I decided to do it separately. Pornography is everywhere, and it's normal for anyone and everyone to be looking at it on their off time. Whether or not you think it's harmful or bad is a personal matter, but pornography can actually be addicting, and can seriously disfigure people's understanding on what romance and intercourse is like in the real world. The line "Lovers take shelter" may be a warning, telling those that are in love to beware of pornography, and the drastic ways it can effect your perception. It may sound silly, but porn can desensitize you, and make you much more passive of sex and what it should be like. Life is more than sex, no matter what impression pornography might give.

Post-production debutantes pursue you in nascar chariots -A debutante can be defined as a higher class woman making her formal appearance, or debut, into society. Basically, coming of age. NASCAR race cars are known by all to be absolutely covered from front to back with advertisements. As mentioned before, it's not uncommon to use women in some fashion to try and push a product, and the younger the better. "Post-production" has to do with movies and such, where filming has ended and it's in the editing stages. Many women are covered with make up, filtered with lighting and angle tricks of the camera, possibly even edited with programs like "Photoshop" to look as amazing as possible. So, this could be referring to the over-done, barely legal girls milked for advertising, pushed on to surface that a poster or logo can stick to, and endlessly chasing after us. NASCAR cars are [duh] really fast, so maybe this is sending across the message that these advertisements are almost inescapable.

They construct ransom letters from biblical passages and bleed mascara into holy water supplies

• I understand this first part to be alluding to the "Holy" terrorists invading the world in such a glorious spotlight today. Terrorists use religions to attract new people and add to their force, manipulating and transforming something representing the greater good and using it for personal gain [probably what the "ransom letters from biblical passages" is about]. This second part might mean something different to you, but here's how I take it: I have always thought of make up as a disgusting, vain mask. Make up is used to cover, to hide, to make peoples face appear differently than they actually are. Women everywhere apply mass amounts to themselves, convinced by the endless models on TV, on print and electronic media, on every advertisement, that it makes them look better. It is used for vanity, and so, in a sense, can be seen as a corrupting product. People apply it to themselves thinking that they are lacking without it, and become fooled by this idea that they need paint on their face to look good. "Holy water" represents purity. Make up covers up, infects, corrupts the purity of natural beauty, and makes things be something they're not for selfish reasons. A girl that simply wants to be accepted and thought of as attractive becomes a walking clown in the latest, hip fashions.

Sorry if that was sort of long, but I hope it shows how much depth there is in these songs. Look at the length of this, and know that it is all just from ONE stanza of a two minute song. I'll do the rest later, if anyone cares to read my nonsense, but it's late, so that's all for now.

Wow, I can't believe no-one has written about this songs meaning. I'll keep this post short- not much time, but seen as every line means something different, I could write an essay.

"There's a war going on for your mind" This line is leading us into the song. The Flobots use this line more than once on their album- the repition makes us think more and more about the line and it's meaning. They mean that each and every one of us can do amazing things, and help make the world a better place, or we can simply go with the flow and continue to succumb to the social mores of our time, and not really change everything. We can accept things the way they are and let higher powers decide how we live our lives and let them (possibly) abuse that power slyly or we can take action and be interested. We can THINK and be aware of whats going on around us. The "war" is between ignorance and truth. I believe in truth and so do the Flobots. What do you belive in?

This in my opinion is the sickest song on the album! love it

Music is cathartic to me. I feel like this is making a point about how the melange of media that throw so much information, different messages that it can be very hard to even see how all this effects you. There needs to be a counter-force to this. Props to The Flobots here.

What I want to say is one's own connotations/definitions of lyrics can change or be seperate from the original "intended" meanings and that since those connotations were originated in one's own mind, shouldn't they belong to the person attached to that mind? Perception/interpretation of lyrics/words are developed in one's own mind. So that may add a new point in the equation. Maybe if one feels they own (or have thier own personal private definition) their own interpretations it may give better sense of seperateness and protect against confusion. Also it allows the listener/reader/interpreter a level of comfort/control to take in the meanings objectively or subjectively and have time to develop a better understanding(collective) or/with seperate personal understandings that need not be shared or be of value as public knowledge.

Hope some of that makes sense... I'm a little buzzed. Peace, love, life....

An obvious shout out to a huge influence of theirs, the once great Gil Scott-Heron. The war for our minds is being fought by the media, corporations, and the government. The media shoves it down your throat, corporations use their existing power, and the government just lies.

'There is a war going on for your mind if you are thinking, you are winning.'

-"We Are Winning" The Flobots

"There's a war going on for your mind" -Ok Im pretty sure that the war in this line doesnt mean the war in Iraq or anything like that. It means a war for what you believe in. The media the news everything on T.V. is so bias. They want you to believe in everything they say. You have to choose what to believe in.

"Media mavens mount surgical strikes from trapper keeper collages and online magazine racks" -Im only 12 so it took me a while to even try to figure anything out. I think it means that the Media is truely skilled at making you think what they believe and they use precise moves to accomplish just that, to make you believe like them. Im not sure on the last part but it could mean that they can be viewed by everyone and suddenly everyone thinks the same. Not really sure at all.

"Cover girl cutouts throw up pop-up ads" -This is pretty obvious. If you ever heard of cover girl its basically a girl company trying to make you beautiful. Commericals try to get their message across by cutting out some of that beauty and putting it on their commerical. Basically ruining their commerical because people just want that prodcut because of the beautiful person using it.

"Infecting victims with silicone shrapnel" -Most people want to beautiful. Its just proven. And they do that by looking at someone beautiful and they stop eating get playstic surgery and infect themselves with envy of that beautiful person wishing they were just like them.

Thats what I think the first four lines mean buy hey im just 12 they could mean something totally different lol

"Pay no attention to the man behind the barbed curtain." I love that. This is a reference to The Wizard of Oz, there the wizardof oz is discovered to be a fraud and says “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” You know. Anyways, I think that what the Flobots mean by this is that the polititians mentioned above (Professional wrestlers and vice presidents want you to believe them) are constantly lying to you and, when found out, they deny and tell the general public to ignore the faults and lies, etc. And remember all of that stuff about Guantanamo Bay? The torture stuff? I think that is an example of what the Flobots mean by saying “Pay no attention to the man behind the barbed curtain.” Barbed curtain, like jail fences. Now I’m getting mixed up, because I’m only 12 too, but this song is incredibly deep and that was just an analysis of that one line.

When the flobots say, "Professional wrestlers and vice presidents want you to believe them"

I believe they are making a comparison between the two, saying that a vice president, (or generally someone in office) is someone that puts on an act, a facade or alter ego, to make you believe that they're someone they're not. It's like theater, except the outcome is the next war. The lines below further illustrate how a facade is in effect. "Pay no attention to the man behind the barbed curtain" In the wizard of oz, the wizard hid behind that curtain to assume a more ominous and powerful role, such as professional wrestlers and government officials. I suppose the "barbed" aspect could mean that he locks this real person he is deep inside, that he wants to keep others out, it could have also meant that performing for an audience has caused his inner person to turn hostile, but I can only speculate on that aspect.

Wow people, seriously? COME ON. This is the easiest song to figure out EVER. You don't have to write an essay for it. I mean seriously some of these comments are laughable. Watch me explain it in one word.

CONSUMERISM.

That wasn't that hard now was it? Need more info? Go watch Fight Club.