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One by one, stings my eyes
Each is gone, each a disguise
Smiling, so aware
Precious moments so rare
Boiled thoughts, evaporated - gone.
Can't bear the loss of never loving you
So jaded, so wrong
Stripping my skin over again
Back when they were teaching me to color in between the lines
In the cushion of my soul I found a remote and now it's changing time
Peeling layers, layers, layers.
Stripping my skin over again
Shivering pale, under my nails
Back when they were teaching me to color in between the lines
In the cushion of my soul I found a remote and now it's changing time
Peeling layers, layers, layers.
Escape in a drug not lasting enough
Now I just use my fingers for love
Rocked back, forth, cornered alone
Purging mind feeds a starving soul
Uncoil, unwrap, shed, scrape, peel, naked, alive, tear down -- feel.
Each is gone, each a disguise
Smiling, so aware
Precious moments so rare
Boiled thoughts, evaporated - gone.
Can't bear the loss of never loving you
So jaded, so wrong
In the cushion of my soul I found a remote and now it's changing time
Peeling layers, layers, layers.
Shivering pale, under my nails
In the cushion of my soul I found a remote and now it's changing time
Peeling layers, layers, layers.
Now I just use my fingers for love
Rocked back, forth, cornered alone
Purging mind feeds a starving soul
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I dunno, this is one of my favorite Kidneythieves song off Trickster, an entire CD full of favorite songs. I mean... I almost wanna cry seeing the tiny handful of people who've posted or viewed any of these songs... I mean c'mon, I know there's more than just a few hundred Kidneythieves fans... or they surely wouldn't have gotten KMFDM to tour with them. that's for sure.
My interpretation of this song is so complicated i dont even know where to begin...and even still tis probably wrong so i wont even try.
All I'll say is that most of her songs seem to be about breaking out of trained thought patterns. That may be though because most of her songs are about a person and loving someone is the strongest thought pattern to break.
I think Ash said it pretty well and gives a very plausible interpretation, although I'll suggest its not about loving someone but about breaking away from one's spiritual bounds.
In my interpretation, the stripping of the skin is a reference to breaking away from the various layers of her former self during the process of personal development. I think she's admitting that its "jaded, so wrong" that she has so few "precious moments" in her memory. I think she's also suggesting that by her "boiling thoughts" can 'evaporate' the impurities deposited in her life by childhood indoctrination. She may be essentially implying that she can enjoy her life without a sense of guilt by shedding her former spiritual-self and loving others.
"Back when they were teaching me to color" implies a rigid structure of indoctrination of proper behavior during childhood. The teachings of these supposedly wise men were meant to numb the mind and dull thoughts (couch cushin, remote control, changing channel references - television as the 'opium of the people').
I suspect that the remainder of the song is her speaking about her trying to love herself for who she is while struggling like an animal (using sex and drugs to numb her mind) in order to merge with her past spiritual self. However, in the end she recognizes that it is only by shedding her former values that she can actually 'feel'.
It occurs to me to add that escape in a drug leaves an empty feeling and even more distressing when the high wears off. To love with one's fingers only implies an incomplete love. A whole love would include both body and mind. To be rocked back and forth implies that she feels like a frightened child again has yet come to terms with the abandonment of her belief system (the starving soul). It is only in 'purging' her mind of the guilt she is feeling that she can nourish her true soul, freedom of mind.