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.
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@ebowtheletter I think it's important to keep in mind Ronald Reagan is a symbol for the entire Baby Boomer generation. Somehow the generation morphed from being personified in the 1960s by Nixon-hating college radicals protesting the Vietnam war to consumerist, flag-waving Ronald Reagan supporters. So the innocence lost isn't just about Reagan, it's about the whole idealism of the 1960s; surrendering the dream of transforming the world into a place of communal prosperity and peace. The insider-trading scandals of the 1980s, personified by Michael Douglas' "Greed is Good" speech in Wall Street, came to represent an every-man-for-himself, damn the consequences culture of unchecked greed and extravagant, amoral selfishness.