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.
I have seen the world's most beautiful women undress in ordinary solitude
I have fallen asleep in the shift of distant satin
I have watched the rich risk it all for 15 minutes in a Heathrow bathroom
I have shuddered as an unseen mouth slid down my spine every night
I have seized with the ice cold rage of a lover betrayed, half a million miles away
I have cried so hard for hours and not known why, I never do
I've been knocked down flat by joy that makes my face pulse like a sugar high
I've been cornered by the screams of a body as it freed itself of its mind
I guess you could call it superpowers
but no one is going to save the world with what I've got
an indigo light from silvery towers
surrounded by rocks and stones as far as the eye can see
I've been lost in a cold white space as an arrogant dream storms in from another life
I have felt the snaps of lines that bind us all to this world
I have felt such unreal pain and not known what to do, it isn't mine
I have stayed awake for weeks and slept for days... not one dream
under low grey skies
and a razored wind that tears at the walls
I have fallen asleep in the shift of distant satin
I have watched the rich risk it all for 15 minutes in a Heathrow bathroom
I have shuddered as an unseen mouth slid down my spine every night
I have seized with the ice cold rage of a lover betrayed, half a million miles away
I have cried so hard for hours and not known why, I never do
I've been knocked down flat by joy that makes my face pulse like a sugar high
I've been cornered by the screams of a body as it freed itself of its mind
I guess you could call it superpowers
but no one is going to save the world with what I've got
an indigo light from silvery towers
surrounded by rocks and stones as far as the eye can see
I've been lost in a cold white space as an arrogant dream storms in from another life
I have felt the snaps of lines that bind us all to this world
I have felt such unreal pain and not known what to do, it isn't mine
I have stayed awake for weeks and slept for days... not one dream
under low grey skies
and a razored wind that tears at the walls
Lyrics submitted by patgas
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"i guess you could call it superpowers but no one is going to save the world with what I've got..." i love that line!