A Short Term Effect

this song is part dream part semi reality... The charcoal face is actually a painting by a person from an insane asylum, i forgot how he got a hold of it.. also it's just a great song about the fluttery disorientation you get while on a controlled substance and how that can sometimes get old; "atmosphere rots in time" freakin love it

This song, like much of the Pornography album, is, I think, about the decay of things. (The bird falling to the ground/"an atmosphere that rots with time") Perhaps the title "A Short Term Effect" relates to the perishability of this earth and the passing away of all that we know.

Accprding to Mr. Smith it's "about drugs, again, and their effect, (a short-term one, think.)"

I sing this in the shower when i'm down; nothing like a little wallowing to make you feel better.

again this album was written entirely during roberts psychedelic drug stage. almost every song is LSD induced. not that it's not great writting but i think a short term effect refers to the complete madness that lsd brings on, but it only lasts for a relatively short term. if you call 12 hours a short term. for those that have not done LSD you can never understand how bizzare and different evertything is. it's a very powerful drug that opens your mind and lets you see things that exist in this world but are only understood while under the influence of acid. the blue glove is even crazier. i also have this video that is vry psychedelic. it's like a short movie of robert during the pornography/blue glove era. it's the closest thing i've seen on film to an lsd trip. the copy i have is very much copied therfore it has an even stranger view. it's almost like an alice in wonderland skit. i've been a cure collector for over 20 years now and i have some really amazing video. not just songs but interviews and backstage stuff. some really weird short movies.

Pornography - "Lurid or sensational material" according to dictionary.com...

yeah, i think a lot of it is just the disintegration of things like you said. a bird falling to the ground.. bleeding.. rotting atmosphere.

then it almost seems like it speaks of what it's like when he's clean: 'a day without substance, a change of thought'... as if drugs and all are only short term and then he has to return to reality.

The descent from bleak, stark reality to equally horrible, but at least more interesting, hallucinations

a drug and its effect

its fairly easy to pass off a lot of his lyrics as about hallucinations, as they seem to be beautiful and strange but have little continuity with the rest of the song, but i think it's a case of him just fitting words around the song as he often claims to do...

i think he said in the liner notes of the deluxe edition (or in the book i read on him, either) - "with pornography we had the music then i just added words that seemed to fit or i thought described the music" or something of that effect. then again, he could be lying!

i think it's about time, earth, life, etc decaying.

"cover me with earth..." implies that everything (perhaps even himself) is dying, obviously when you are buried your coffin is covered with earth.
"movement, no movement, just a falling bird, cold as it hits the bleeding ground." not only humans are dying out but so are animals and such... "the bleeding ground" means that the earth is rotting too... it's kind of self explanatory, hence the fact that if you're bleeding you can be dying or injured. in this case, it would be dying. here i think that he might be writing about the world eventually falling apart.

i have seen where it says that Robert said it was about a drug. he also could have been hallucinating, while he was on this drug, that the world was falling apart and he was as well... it could be either.