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What Should We Do With Your Body? (The Lightning) Lyrics
Will you bleed and dress me where I'm found?
Black with blood and conduction we sniff dry ground
I'm a lightning bolt like a toy that chokes
Open hands will open throats
I'm a single flashing curse that finds you in the universe
Oh, the views you see over cross danglings
What should we do with your body?
Oh, the view you see will be astounding
All of the beautiful bodies
There will be family pets roaming our streets
They belly up to the scent of the hospitals
And of the rotting meat
I'm a lightning strike that will circle the sky
You will swallow your teeth
Your wool smells brown with burn
All shepherds eat their herds
I can show you the way
The lightning rods are like fingers of God
And I'll have you pictured in my head
All of you butchered in your beds
I can have this arranged
The willing whore is the hand of the Lord
And I'll have you pictured in my head
All of you butchered in your beds
'Cause God is everywhere
God is everywhere
Over funeral screams and wedding dreams
What should we do with the bodies?
The sweet release, the sound of sighing
All of your beautiful bodies
To the birthing scene or suicide bombings
What should we do with the bodies?
The sweet release, the slow resigning
All of your beautiful bodies
Black with blood and conduction we sniff dry ground
I'm a lightning bolt like a toy that chokes
Open hands will open throats
I'm a single flashing curse that finds you in the universe
What should we do with your body?
Oh, the view you see will be astounding
All of the beautiful bodies
They belly up to the scent of the hospitals
And of the rotting meat
I'm a lightning strike that will circle the sky
You will swallow your teeth
Your wool smells brown with burn
All shepherds eat their herds
The lightning rods are like fingers of God
And I'll have you pictured in my head
All of you butchered in your beds
I can have this arranged
The willing whore is the hand of the Lord
And I'll have you pictured in my head
All of you butchered in your beds
'Cause God is everywhere
God is everywhere
What should we do with the bodies?
The sweet release, the sound of sighing
All of your beautiful bodies
To the birthing scene or suicide bombings
What should we do with the bodies?
The sweet release, the slow resigning
All of your beautiful bodies
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On the surface, this brilliant pAper chAse album appears to simply describe various ways to die. Yet the band is trying to do more than be macabre; taken as a whole, these songs explore the irony of why we are on this earth only to suffer through tragedy, pain, and death.
"What Should We Do With Your Body?" asks the mundane yet frankly shocking question that all humans must face: you're going to croak someday, where should we bury your ass? The song's narrator seems to be the spirit of God's vengeance, embodied in a (perhaps figurative) lightning bolt that causes sudden death. This first part of the song is musically chaotic to match the violent lyrical imagery.
But it is in the song's second part that the deeper meaning is to be found. The band shifts tone and "Your Body" morphs into a faux-gospel hymn. In the background, a man asks a child, "Who made you?" "God made me," the girl whispers. "Where is God?" "God is everywhere," she responds. The implication is that, through all of these different stages of life and from the wonderful to the horrifying--from the "birthing scenes to suicide bombings"--God is present. So I believe the song is questioning that if God is indeed everywhere, why does he stand idly by while suicide bombers kill little kids, or humans die generally horrific deaths? "The willing whore is the hand of the Lord," implying that nature and circumstances combine to bring about humans' demise...and that God not only could care less, He might even enjoy it.
This song, like the rest of the album, is a commentary on the conundrum of life and death and the human condition.