A Means To An End

To me, this song is about the natural, inevitable and futile conclusion of a love, marriage or any serious relationship. The pair start out happy ("stood side by side") and even felt quite invincible together through their collective joy "our vision touched the sky"; but ultimately, their relationship is just a means to an end - it just exists to end, as gloomy as such a thought is. Their love or companionship is destined to become broken, the pair growing alienated ("foreign soil"), and die, or merely dissolve into nothingness - futile form the start as the means where always destined to end, or 'die' ("where dogs and vultures eat").

Just thoughts of a huge JD fan :)

References, as in Heart And Soul, to Jesus Christ. Betrayal. Ian Curtis was brilliant with grand-scale analogies and references to the Bible and Ancient History. He was a genius.

To me this song has to do with a close friendship that is gone, and a trust which has been soiled. Especially in the lyrics..I always lokked to you, I put my trust in you..

a means to an end. one must remmeber the writer and elad signer killed himself shortly after this work so always view these songs though the eyes of utter depresion. i think this is a song to himself and how he has lost trust in himself and hes putting his trust in himself to finish the job to get his final need

'Eternal rights we left behind We were the better kind'

Like the biblical tale - the fall of Adam and Eve from paradise.

To me this song has to do with a close friendship that is gone, and a trust which has been soiled. Especially in the lyrics..I always lokked to you, I put my trust in you..

This always makes me think about a caustically competitive, year-plus-length relationship I had with a psycho ex-girlfriend . The first four lines establish my image of the endlessly ongoing relationship that sets two lives aside from the world around them, those two people living by a unique, dangerous, constantly evolving set of rules. By the last verse all positivity has become utterly bitter. This song is simple and brilliant. Perhaps I read into it too much, though?

He's putting his trust in death.

I think this is a song about either a friendship or a relationship being exploited, as the title clearly suggests. To the other person it was just means to an end, but to him it was so much more. He was bitterly disappointed when he found out what the other person's real interests were. "Is this your goal Your final need Where dogs and vultures eat" And he believed their vision touched the sky.

In addition: he still loved that other person, but had to leave them. He couldn't believe they could exploit all the trust he had put in them. "Committed still I turn to go I put my trust in you" It might as well be about how he perceived the reasons for his failing marriage.