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.
So the fields are stubble, the garden's done
Where the scary scarecrow stands
Sees her holding up horizons with her hands
She's so tired of reading daddy's lips
That essay on a frown
Watch her memories of human voices drown
Let horsey bray break between the thunder boom
Make grasses' swish meet the crickets' ring
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
So the back lanes tie the city down
A mess of dirty string
Winter dies the same way every spring
As the sky tries on its uniform
Of turned off TV gray
And the ways we watched her watch us walk away
Let every rain clatter down at groaning streets
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Let every wind howl and creak the creaking doors
To rooms that too much has happened in
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Where the scary scarecrow stands
Sees her holding up horizons with her hands
She's so tired of reading daddy's lips
That essay on a frown
Watch her memories of human voices drown
Let horsey bray break between the thunder boom
Make grasses' swish meet the crickets' ring
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
So the back lanes tie the city down
A mess of dirty string
Winter dies the same way every spring
As the sky tries on its uniform
Of turned off TV gray
And the ways we watched her watch us walk away
Let every rain clatter down at groaning streets
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Let every wind howl and creak the creaking doors
To rooms that too much has happened in
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Lyrics submitted by sockmonkey, edited by eunoia
Elegy for Elsabet Lyrics as written by Stephen Carroll John K Samson
Lyrics © MOTHERSHIP MUSIC PUBLISHING
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they have an amazing way with words. beautiful.