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.
She turned her back on the church and put all her faith in me
At the back of the chapel where I taught her to screw and to blaspheme
We turned our backs to the church, with our trousers around our knees
While screaming the scriptures, she screamed I was her favorite heresy
In a note I read, "If you should go blind and deaf
I'll cleanse and I'll bathe you and I'll cook for you daily.
I will take a dry ballpoint pen and trace on yr chest
All of the same conversations we have now in bed"
I don't mean to be selfish, but I think I'd sooner just be dead
Behind the tennis court alongside the river, not a single live flower to see
This is the one girl who woke up from all that, and now falls asleep next to me
But I swear now, every time that I kiss her, she feels her God breathe on her shoulder
It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yrs
She said she wanted a sea burial, not grass and hypodermics to her hips
I prune the ivy from yr grandmother's tomb
More tender and careful than the superstitious ripped you from yr mothers womb
In a note I wrote, "I think too much about the end
But being around it made me feel like I'm coping now.
When I view the cemetery, I don't see headstones
I see rows of engraved middle teeth, hungry, waiting for me
And though I am fearful, I think I just crave the relief"
Behind the tennis court alongside the river, paper flowers, still beautiful thing
This is the one girl who woke up from all that, and now falls asleep next to me
But I swear now, every time that I kiss her, she feels her God breathe on her shoulder
It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yrs
At the back of the chapel where I taught her to screw and to blaspheme
We turned our backs to the church, with our trousers around our knees
While screaming the scriptures, she screamed I was her favorite heresy
In a note I read, "If you should go blind and deaf
I'll cleanse and I'll bathe you and I'll cook for you daily.
I will take a dry ballpoint pen and trace on yr chest
All of the same conversations we have now in bed"
I don't mean to be selfish, but I think I'd sooner just be dead
Behind the tennis court alongside the river, not a single live flower to see
This is the one girl who woke up from all that, and now falls asleep next to me
But I swear now, every time that I kiss her, she feels her God breathe on her shoulder
It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yrs
She said she wanted a sea burial, not grass and hypodermics to her hips
I prune the ivy from yr grandmother's tomb
More tender and careful than the superstitious ripped you from yr mothers womb
In a note I wrote, "I think too much about the end
But being around it made me feel like I'm coping now.
When I view the cemetery, I don't see headstones
I see rows of engraved middle teeth, hungry, waiting for me
And though I am fearful, I think I just crave the relief"
Behind the tennis court alongside the river, paper flowers, still beautiful thing
This is the one girl who woke up from all that, and now falls asleep next to me
But I swear now, every time that I kiss her, she feels her God breathe on her shoulder
It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yrs
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I think it's about being in a relationship with someone who is very religious, whilst possessing no faith yourself and feeling like God is your biggest romantic rival, so you prompt and tempt your lover in to sin to prove reality is better than ideology; I know, I've been there