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.
I'm standing on this corner, can't get their attention
Facing rush hour faces turned around
I clutch my stack of paper, press one to a chest
Then watch it swoop and stutter to the ground
I'm weary with right-angles, abbreviated daylight
Waiting for a winter to be done
Why do I still see you in every mirrored window
In all that I could never overcome?
How I don't know what I should do
With my hands when I talk to you
How you don't know where you should look
So you look at my hands
How movements rise and then dissolve
Melted by our shallow breath
How causes dance away from me
I am your pamphleteer
I walk this room in time to the beat of the Gestetner
Contemplate my next communique
The rhetoric and treason of saying that I'll miss you
Of saying "Hey, well maybe you should stay"
Sing, Oh what force on earth could be
Weaker than the feeble strength
Of one, like me remembering
The way it could have been
So, help me with this barricade
No surrender, no defeat
A specter's haunting Albert Street
I am your pamphleteer
I am your pamphleteer
I am your pamphleteer
Facing rush hour faces turned around
I clutch my stack of paper, press one to a chest
Then watch it swoop and stutter to the ground
I'm weary with right-angles, abbreviated daylight
Waiting for a winter to be done
Why do I still see you in every mirrored window
In all that I could never overcome?
How I don't know what I should do
With my hands when I talk to you
How you don't know where you should look
So you look at my hands
How movements rise and then dissolve
Melted by our shallow breath
How causes dance away from me
I am your pamphleteer
I walk this room in time to the beat of the Gestetner
Contemplate my next communique
The rhetoric and treason of saying that I'll miss you
Of saying "Hey, well maybe you should stay"
Sing, Oh what force on earth could be
Weaker than the feeble strength
Of one, like me remembering
The way it could have been
So, help me with this barricade
No surrender, no defeat
A specter's haunting Albert Street
I am your pamphleteer
I am your pamphleteer
I am your pamphleteer
Lyrics submitted by sockmonkey
Pamphleteer Lyrics as written by Stephen Carroll John K Samson
Lyrics © MOTHERSHIP MUSIC PUBLISHING
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I personally think its about this guy who passes out pamphlets just as JK said.. but he loves this girl and knows he can't have her and is haunted by the mistakes he made with her. He misses her and constantly thinks about her, and everyone knows.