Harakiri

The song reminds me of ancient Greek philosophy. The Greeks learned about the nature of existence through something like dreaming, a state of mind that transported them beyond into a place where life cannot go. When he says that they crowned the sun, that ties it all up for me. The most important god for this practice is Apollo who is the sun. So basically, I think that he's talking about ancient philosophers who gave their lives to kiss us with wisdoms only accessible to them.

this song is about pollution and how we as the human race are basically destroying ourselves

The song criticizes our self-destructive nature (hatred, war, racism etc) and how badly we're affecting every living creature on this planet.

"But I believe that they are free When their time was done" - death is freedom from this hell that we've created on Earth

I'm not quite sure what "They crowned the sun" means. Maybe he's referring to the fact that we gave more "power" to the sun over our planet, with our ways of pollution. There's also a quote in the video that says "the last decade was the hottest in recorded history".

I really love this song.

"We're the day birds Deciding to fly against the sky Within our dreams, we all wake up To kiss the ones who are born to die" He's putting us in the shoes of other earth animals to give us perspective. We all live just to die.

"We're the greying herds Hurting each other with our lives Within our dreams, we all wake up To kiss the ones who are born to die Born to die, born to die" 'greying herds' to me is saying that our race is nearing the end of it's life. We hurt each other simply by following our natural path through existence. Then we're reminded that we are all literally born to die.

"The drum fish They beached themselves in Hara-kiri The blackbirds They fell in thousands from the sky Their red wings Streaming down from the higher seas Deflected by the grounds" This is to me a beautiful way of describing the sad state of our planet. Animals are dying in massive numbers because they cannot deal with climate change.

"They crowned the sun They crowned the sun But I believe that they are free When their time was done They were drowned by the only One But I believe that they are free Washed by the sun" Other earthlings and our own ancestors have no gods, no kings, they crown the Sun. They worship that which gives them life! To me this is could be a reference to the biblical warnings about creating gods and worshiping false idols. I'm not sure what "the only One" refers to, my first guess would be that he means nature or the universe. The ones who crowned the sun were died as we all will, however they experienced freedom while they lived.

"Our statues The soaring edifice of our times Detracted from the ways of the wise The future will view all history as a crime So father, tell us when is time to rise" We literally build statues to worship wise, or great humans. The irony is with each generation we realize just how wrong we are about EVERYTHING and how sickening our behavior is. He says the future will view history as a crime, but I believe many already view history as a crime. When can we ascend this cycle of crimes against ourselves and nature?

"They crowned the sun They crowned the sun But I believe that they are free When their time was done They were drowned by the only One

But I believe that they are free They crowned the sun They crowned the sun But I believe that they are free And we believe that they are free Because I believe that they are me Washed by the sun" These 2 stanzas remind us of what he sees as the ideal way of life. I think he is pointing out how we are trying to dominate nature. How much longer will we consider ourselves intelligent before every last one of us is dead?

He seems to do similar word play in The Sky is Over. "Not even from the Sun" , replace Sun with Son and it sounds like he is trying to illustrate his point in another manner. Almost like sarcastically saying "faith has nothing to do with what's going on." "don't you want me to run" like a sarcastic Republican run manipulating the message in his favor.

I read "sun" as "Son" in Harikiri. He is using it to compare similar messages about life and death, and asking why we reject our instincts and ignore the obvious.

This song is obviously about the forced Westernization / nuclear bombing of Japan. Isn't it obvious?

It Could be an "Opinion" or a "Song Meaning"

INFO: Alright i've been listening to "Serj Tankian" for a while and "System of a down" as well and i've been taking some "puzzles" and putting things together and "Serj Tankian" has really Unique personality and like he talks about how people are doing and the surrounding etc.. and i've been taking few things from people who also posted in here such as "Xero77xon" and "XxStrickenxXon" etc and things make sense but it's going away you know? and this is more like my opinion..

LYRICS and Meaning or Opinion:

They beached themselves in Hara-kiri = Covered with death or blood The blackbirds They fell in thousands from the sky = Animals dying by our destruction weather by gas or oil (also known as): Cars = which makes our planet less healthy (Not sure so) Their red wings Streaming down from the higher seas Deflected by the grounds

Our statues The soaring edifice of our times Detracted from the ways of the wise The future will view all history as a crime = Everything has happened in So father, tell us when is time to rise. /////// the passed and i think he ....................................................... /////// might have been referring as the "Genocide" and "So father, tell us when is time to rise" = father as referred in as a "God" etc..

"Washed by the sun" sounds more like our generation or ourselves have been more like "careless" or more like "Brain-washed" as no one cares...

Few things seems like a legit meaning... or maybe because i'm explaining things which isn't helping..

These song make me cry for what we as humans did to each other. I can hear that it's talking about the ww2 and bombing the japan. As you know Japan flag had a sun over it's red circle. "They Crowned the sun"

"We're the day birds Deciding to fly against the sky Within our dreams, we all wake up To kiss the ones who are born to die " This part is describing the US bombs that they are going to fly like birds

"We're the greying herds Hurting each other with our lives Within our dreams, we all wake up To kiss the ones who are born to die Born to die, born to die" And it's describing the japanese army which are famous for doing Hara-kiri with hitting US navy.

You can see "The blackbirds They fell in thousands from the sky" Blackbird is metaphor of bombs and they fell from sky.

Both of them ends with "Within our dreams, we all wake up To kiss the ones who are born to die Born to die, born to die" Wanna say that they have dreams and they are the same people.They (Japanese and Us army) are human they have dreams and they will die soon.

Those WW's just started for expensing our country "Our statues The soaring edifice of our times Detracted from the ways of the wise"

And in the end a generation will come and accept these faults as a big crime so God say when it will come. "The future will view all history as a crime So father, tell us when is time to rise"

Japanese people where hit by 2 atomic bomb and Serj believes that after the hit people who were died , became free like a bird.

Its just want to say that we should stop killing ourselves. We are human we all have a dream and we will die soon so be kind to each other.

(sorry if I have grammatical mistakes)

I think this song's about war

"they crowned the sun"

"washed by the sun"

Both feel like he is meaning "son" in context to the rest of the song. He's asking why can't we see that these animals, by our definition, have found Jesus?