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.
Trees will make a forest
Trees will make a bow
These are all the harder
Words you have to know
If everyone's a structure
Where their own savior sits
I'm a little red house
But no one's living in it
Cars are little blood cells
We are oxygen
City is the airways
Suburbs appendages
She was feeling lonely
Tired of the hive
Rented out a family
And he bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Little cities' names on very lonely maps
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks
Where are all the seedlings
We grew for violins?
Down in Jersey lumber
Still in prosthetic limbs
Should've been a soldier
I could've fought and died
There's no revolution
So I bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Coming down the aisle while the horns play Taps
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks
If somehow I was new and everything was unsaid
I'd go and buy a hammer, never sing again
Trees will make a bow
These are all the harder
Words you have to know
If everyone's a structure
Where their own savior sits
I'm a little red house
But no one's living in it
Cars are little blood cells
We are oxygen
City is the airways
Suburbs appendages
She was feeling lonely
Tired of the hive
Rented out a family
And he bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Little cities' names on very lonely maps
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks
Where are all the seedlings
We grew for violins?
Down in Jersey lumber
Still in prosthetic limbs
Should've been a soldier
I could've fought and died
There's no revolution
So I bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Bought a bride
Coming down the aisle while the horns play Taps
They tied her up and laid her on the train tracks
If somehow I was new and everything was unsaid
I'd go and buy a hammer, never sing again
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I now keep hearing 'their hive' not 'the hive'
I guess it's very minor and quite arbitrary, but whatever.
and now think I'm hearing 'have ruined all the maps'??? I can't get past the 'h' sound but still not fully hear the 'ed'
ok I've fully gone insane with all this lyric detecting. but it's fun too, I suppose. maybe it's time I go and buy a hammer...kill myself again. again? yes again. I'm already dead. ooooh a ghost speaks, shit if I was a ghost I'd be all up on the band to find out the real lyrics and then stop being so insane and then come back to life and spill the beans. They'd be mad and I'd be glad. the end.