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.
To dream of death, to dream of life.
In the city of despair I found the living.
To dream of life, to dream of death.
In the city of the living I found despair.
I see the sun-baked earth before me.
The peaks beckon from afar.
Their siren songs reverberate.
Plains open before me, and yet I wait within
the walls of suffocating trepidation.
Unfettered by the prophecy of experiencing death alone
we try our hand at shielding our faces from our mortality.
We failed the sky and lost the movement and echo of stone.
An ascension reveals unmatched fears as the haunting farce appears.
In the city of despair I found the living.
To dream of life, to dream of death.
In the city of the living I found despair.
I see the sun-baked earth before me.
The peaks beckon from afar.
Their siren songs reverberate.
Plains open before me, and yet I wait within
the walls of suffocating trepidation.
Unfettered by the prophecy of experiencing death alone
we try our hand at shielding our faces from our mortality.
We failed the sky and lost the movement and echo of stone.
An ascension reveals unmatched fears as the haunting farce appears.
Lyrics submitted by Octavarium64
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