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.
All and all, here's all I know
Her heart stopped beating years ago
But below the ground her hair did grow
It pushed aside the coffin door
It pushed up through the earthen floor
When I got home, a forest had grown
Where was the girl that I'd left so many years before
So if you are the traveling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone
So I built a cabin there
In the forest of her hair
And when some years had come and gone
There came to my humble home
A storm, and a young woman
Who found my cabin nice and warm
She stayed with me a night, no less
I enjoyed her company, I must confess
It lifted the veil of loneliness
That had hung over me
But in the morning, when I rose
I found the trees of the forest had grown
They blocked up the windows, they barred up the doors
They grew up through the cracks in the floors
And across my cabin they spread
And over the wrists and the ankles and the neck
Of the young woman in the bed
And she twisted and writhed like a rag in the wind
The forest her final resting place
My cabin, her coffin
So if you are the traveling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone
Her heart stopped beating years ago
But below the ground her hair did grow
It pushed aside the coffin door
It pushed up through the earthen floor
When I got home, a forest had grown
Where was the girl that I'd left so many years before
So if you are the traveling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone
So I built a cabin there
In the forest of her hair
And when some years had come and gone
There came to my humble home
A storm, and a young woman
Who found my cabin nice and warm
She stayed with me a night, no less
I enjoyed her company, I must confess
It lifted the veil of loneliness
That had hung over me
But in the morning, when I rose
I found the trees of the forest had grown
They blocked up the windows, they barred up the doors
They grew up through the cracks in the floors
And across my cabin they spread
And over the wrists and the ankles and the neck
Of the young woman in the bed
And she twisted and writhed like a rag in the wind
The forest her final resting place
My cabin, her coffin
So if you are the traveling kind
Don't take a love you might leave behind
Take my advice, stay at home
It's better to have never loved
Than to be loved and be left alone
Lyrics submitted by bananahero
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