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Criticism and Self Realization Lyrics

One by one, they stand single file
To see the king of the hill atop his worthless pile
The king has no clothes
Throw stones
Watch him implode
All for one or are we all alone

Brick by brick, it's a house built on lies
Because illusion is easy to young adoring eyes
It's not hard to see
Through deceit
Make them believe
Fight the stampede, be the one to lead

All my missteps, I retrace
Every failure, I'll erase
My pride is gone
I find the strength to carry on
Looking back, what's left of me
Am I the person that I wanna be
Do I belong
I find the strength to carry on

Rung by rung, he's climbed up to the top
But once the engine is running, it's hard to make it stop
Ignore what you're told
Eyes closed
Dig from below
Don't care where you're from, just where you go

Step by step, we're ignoring the signs
That cocky bastard is planting the seeds of his demise
There's nothing to gain
Only shame
We fan the flames
Fight through the pain, live another day
Just one more day

All my missteps, I retrace
Every failure, I'll erase
My pride is gone
I find the strength to carry on
Looking back, what's left of me
Am I the person that I wanna be
Do I belong
Do I belong

Writing’s on the wall
That Cheshire smile says you don't have the courage to take the fall
You're not fooling anyone
You're no one

All my missteps, I retrace
Every failure, I'll erase
My pride is gone
I find the strength to carry on
Looking back, what's left of me
Am I the person that I wanna be
Do I belong
Do I belong
Song Info
Submitted by
khan Legio On Mar 21, 2015
1 Meaning

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Cover art for Criticism and Self Realization lyrics by All That Remains

I think this song is a sort of indirect dialogue between a ruler that failed to do his work properly and the angry people. The angry people speak during the verses, talking about the lies behind the failure and their ideals, while the ruler recognizes his faults and asks himself if he's sure of what to do now, as stated in the chorus.

Imo, this is what the song is SPECIFICALLY about.

The song can also be interpretated in a different, more generic way, and I like this enterpretation more because it can be applied to a lot more situations of life.

If you make a mistake, you probably won't be forgiven, even if you recognize your mistakes and want to repair what you broke. This isn't either good or bad, it's just how the world goes, because the same thing could be applied to the others that were directly hit by the mistake you made. It's something related to pride, imo, and it reminds me the first verse of "Take this Life" from In Flames: "It's not so much the pain, it's more the actual knife"; it doesn't matter if you didn't want to do something or if you regret it, you still did it and there's nothing that will change that. Sure, you can still try to fix what you did, but the wound won't disappear. But this song also shows off the hypocrisy of the people: "don't care where you're from, just where you go" is my favorite phrase from the song and it literally says that it doesn't matter what you did, it matters if you do something good to fix it. It's totally the contrary of what people think if someone else makes a mistake.

My Interpretation
 
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