he gets out of bed
he goes to the room
he turns on the set
he is as smart as a broom
hey you brainless
how'd you lose us?
hey you thoughtless
how'd you screw us?
it starts on his head
he tries not to hear
it gets worse instead
he checks out of here
hey you dumb ass
how'd you lose us?
hey you headless
how'd you screw us?
he goes to the room
he turns on the set
he is as smart as a broom
how'd you lose us?
hey you thoughtless
how'd you screw us?
he tries not to hear
it gets worse instead
he checks out of here
how'd you lose us?
hey you headless
how'd you screw us?
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2 words... Richard Gere
The gerbil in this song seems to be someone living a meaningless life whose inner demons catch up with him. "He checks out of here", and commits suicide, maybe a prelude to It's Over.
"The song "Gerbil" is essentially about the guy on the answering machine on "Spent". He's just a guy that slipped through the cracks of the system and blames everything on the system, and has kind of decided to live his life outside the system. I respect him, to a certain degree. I really think he's just a loose cannon that needs to be seen by people. I think everyone should meet this guy one time. You'll realize how far people can go off the deep end."
So keen of you to point out the similarities of the character described here in this song and the voice on the recording in spent! All those years ago I was convinced tnat half the songs on this album were just about how they guy in Filter's friends are all drug addicted screw-ups, and that the answering machine message was there to help illustrate that.
Given that he'd left NIN shortly before recording this album, and the piss-take on the Downward Spiral riff at the end, I'd always assumed this was a jab at Trent Reznor. Given that TDS was about Trent getting carried away with whatever addiction he was dealing with, it seems plausible that there were tensions with his live band, no?