Heavy Metal Machine

Sounds to me like it's about someone who loves to make music for the sake of music trapped in a place where everyone around him seems to want him to pump out stuff and make money off him. The line "If I were dead would my records sell? Could you tell?" sounds like it's referencing how record companies will release things after an artist's death to capitalize on their legacy. Plays into the same theme as discussed before. The idea of someone being pressured to make music to make money. Being trapped in a heavy metal machine and being willing to die to escape. "Let me die, rock and roll". Also the lyric' We're the metal in their metal machines further drills the same point in. They are simply just a cog in the corporate "heavy metal" machine> So to boil down everything I just said, this song may be about the pains of being a mainstream music artist being forced to push out music for the sake of making the record companies money. A droning scrap of metal in their heavy metal machines.

i remember that i don't know where i heard or read that billy said that the bit: "if i were dead would my records sell" was ironic... he didn't really mean it... i love this song... i don't know what that's exactly about... but i just love it...

It seems to be about someone who is stuck in a situation he can't get out of. He's becoming something different because that's what everyone wants from him and his band. All the while, he is just becoming more and more disillusioned by it and has no more feeling for the music. He just wants to escape. "Let me die, rock and roll."

I think he's trying to convey how he loves making music and he loves that people love his music, but he hates dumb groupies and posers who like his music simply for the sake of their mainstreamed-ness. Just a guess

i think he was just being totally ironic, 'cos he knew the charicatured persona people had of him, so he just wrote a song to fit that persona..?

i think it's about fame and how you become sort of viewed as a machine (note the name Heavy Metal Machine). i think billy can describe it better than i can. you sort of stop being seen as a person

if i were alive if i were real would you survive what would you feel

and it's sort of about the isolation you get from being a star and how you stop being seen as a person, and maybe even how you become that heavy metal machine, like when you're onstage or something

let me die for rock and roll let me die to save so soul let me die, let me die rock and roll

well, it's a wonderful song. i think it should be a classic.

!Notice

There seem to be errors in these lyrics that have been posted. ...Somewhat large errors that drastically change the meaning of this song.

The following changes should be made:

"when they're metal, in their metal machines" Should be
"We're the metal, in their metal machines"

"when they're metal, and they're trying an excuse" Should be "We're the metal In their droning schemes"

"it's all our mental, to all the once stiff wings" Should be "It's elemental To all the rust it brings"

This is what azlyrics.com listed the lyrics as, I'd say consult a booklet from Machina/the machines of God to get them 100% straight. I only have the LP version of Machina, so rather than havign the lyrics listed I have a bunch of pages with paintings on them, plus an excerpt from a song (Glass and the Ghost Children).

I always thought the lyrics I posted just now were the right ones, if they aren't then I am sorry for wasting my life and your time, but if they are right they lead me to think that this song is about how everyone is just a pawn, a sheep in a much larger plot.

Glass wants to die so that his (God's) message lives on

Wait so is Machine of God's an album with a story? that'd be pretty cool if true...anyhow. I love this song it sounds just so great and lives up to the title. His voice goes along so well with the music it's so kickass. I love it.

Well, duh. The album was based off of Billy's story, Glass and the Machines Of God. Don't you know? Billy wanted to make Machina a double album, but the Pumpkins' record company kind of sucked. So the Pumpkins had about twenty-five unreleased songs just floating around. Billy wanted to get those songs released before the Smashing Pumpkins broke up, but the record company said that it would be too close to Machina to release another album. So, Billy released the songs on the internet, as "Machina 2".