Suspect Fled the Scene

I think it's about this guy running from christianity, and all these "perfect" christians dont understand it, or try to help. "looking down from that stain glass steeple" It's like they are higher up, instead of trying to connect with you on the same level to help you.

i think this song is about hypocritical christians who gossip and tear each other down and finally some one got sick of it and left.

This song is great, one of my favourites.

i really like this song too. im listening to it right now, and im wearing a pedro the lion t-shirt. but i spilled bleach on it. that makes me sad. i like this shirt too. yeah so, i love pedro the lion and never drink bleach when you are wearing a pedro the lion t-shirt

You ever heard the saying that Christians have a bad habit of killing their wounded?

I use to say that, with a sense of removal and superiority. After all, I'm open-minded and accepting. I understand fully that our sins are equal in God's eyes. But a part of me still felt elevated above these pharasaical litigators offering no quarter for the recurrent sinner.

It's only been lately that I realized that the legalists throwing around rules and judgment are the wounded too, and act out of defensiveness or a desire for control- and I've been more than willing to condemn them.

Simple message- always be compassionate. If only understanding it were the same as DOING it.

"Never meant to leave the way you came" to me says it best. Mainstream religion has a real complex about controlling their followers, and I think this particular person came into the Church with the idea that it would make them more free from damnation, but then realized that once you are inside you are less free. Unless you are a person who just happens to agree with every single aspect, you are shunned.

The first time I heard this song, it felt like it was about homosexuality to me. "Damning rumors" referring to the (Bullshit) in the bible about condemning the gay to hell, and then "Find a scapegoat fast." Never meant to leave the way you came, the ridiculous gay conversion, and "It won't go away," the fact that you're attracted to males. But that's really just me. It's what came to mind when I heard the song.

The religious interpretations make a lot of sense but I feel like they still lack a reason for why he's running and why they're shooting to kill.

VERSE 1: An exemplary Christian friend is getting ready to abandon and shun a friend who has made a stand against the church and town they both have grown up in together. But before he does this he decides to warn and help the friend in a cold and calculating sort of way.The "Good Christian Friend" is a mechanic who is working on the "Troubled" friend's car, "Your horse is ready to ride when morning comes"

CHORUS: "It won't go away."

          "It" =  "The fever to find a scape goat fast and fix the blame"

VERSE2:The fever is WHAT won't go away. The fever that is the urge the "Troubled Friend" will develop to avenge himself or the want to kill himself.. "I know, you never meant to leave the way you came" means that the "Troubled Friend" is being banished from the town he was considered a something of a "foriegner" or "outsider" in.

BRIDGE: "Looking down from the stain glass steeple, they'll never know why you had to run"= In small towns there are those who are not in control yet thy are priveleged; in most cases they are the women, the children, the retarded, the very old, etc. the ones who believe everything they hear from the pastor. They are the weakest of the towns-people and the servants of the Christian church; they are THE FLOCK and are the characters who make up Bazan's "STAIN GLASS STEEPLE". They'll never know why he had to run because it's easier that way for them, to be in denial about the fact that they have an inability to accept a different type of person into their community.

CODA: "Ride as fast as you can they're shootin' to kill" = This one speaks for itself. The "Good Christian Friend" is telling the "Troubled Friend" to get the hell out of town before it gets worst. It is also an emphasis of the "Good Christian Friend's" selfish want to get rid of the "Troubled Friend," making it that much easier for him to cut his ties with him and go on living in the town. Bazan is a genius at storytelling; perhaps I'm a bit off in my interpretation, but still, there's a real story going on. And it's obviously being told by the "Good Christian Friend" who is quite a bit double sided in his understanding of the single and most crucial skill of which must be developed in order to maintain survival in Christian-Small-Town-America, DON'T FUCK WITH THE CHURCH.

I'm pretty sure I heard Bazan say that this was about someone who had been convicted of a sex crime. That reading really makes a lot of sense, especially the "it won't go away" refrain: something like that on your record follows you around forever and you'll never find a community to accept you, even if you are reformed/rehabilitated. Or if you're one of the unfortunate people who has consensual sex with a 16 year-old when you're 18 and then has to forever be registered as a sex criminal.