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.
Looking from outside inwards
A view to dumbfound the most outspoken minds
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
Battered and bruised with nowhere to hide
Disasters man made and natural
Gradually pushing to absolute imbalance
On the scales of survival
Soon to tip in favour if extinction
An unrelenting dioxin cloud
Propelled to dispel our oxygen
Slowly seizing up our lungs
And choking the ground we depend upon
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
Battered and bruised with nowhere to hide
Transforming aquatic inhabitance
Overcome by cocktails of sludge and chemicals
Interfering with life on which so many rely
Then dumping our shit to economise
Wanton destruction
Environment in regression
All reverse into decline
Kiss this unfit goodbye
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
A future of provocation with nowhere to go
A view to dumbfound the most outspoken minds
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
Battered and bruised with nowhere to hide
Disasters man made and natural
Gradually pushing to absolute imbalance
On the scales of survival
Soon to tip in favour if extinction
An unrelenting dioxin cloud
Propelled to dispel our oxygen
Slowly seizing up our lungs
And choking the ground we depend upon
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
Battered and bruised with nowhere to hide
Transforming aquatic inhabitance
Overcome by cocktails of sludge and chemicals
Interfering with life on which so many rely
Then dumping our shit to economise
Wanton destruction
Environment in regression
All reverse into decline
Kiss this unfit goodbye
Silent screams from an unfit Earth
A future of provocation with nowhere to go
Lyrics submitted by sean
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