For me this song is, in essence, about the impermanence of all things.
Just look at the third and fourth lines
"Logan, Grant, and Ronald Reagan
In the grave with Xylophagan"
Shows how great men like these are now laid low (xylophagan being a species of beetle.)
He then turns much of his attention to even larger matters -how cities and civilisations can die.
"Do you know the ghost community?"
"I know, I know the nations past
I know, I know they rust at last" -speaking here about how great civilisations can be laid just as low as the figures he talks about in the first verse.
"They tremble with the nervous thought
Of having been, at last, forgot"
I love these lines. He's talking again about how things which seemed so huge and permanent to people at the time eventualy were wiped up and forgotten. It's sort of like that Jospeh Stalin quote: "the death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic."
In the third verse his thoughts of death peak when he things about his own death:
"We see a thousand rooms to rest
Helping us taste the bite of death"
here he talks about how we should be prepared for death having seen it so often, yet we never are.
The places which are named in the choruses are places in Illinoise which are ghost towns. (Shawneetown being one of the more famous.) He's obviously done his research.
I love how the theme of zombies ties the whole thing together. Night of the Living Dead was shot in Pennsylvania though so I'm not too sure of the reason...
For me this song is, in essence, about the impermanence of all things.
Just look at the third and fourth lines "Logan, Grant, and Ronald Reagan In the grave with Xylophagan"
Shows how great men like these are now laid low (xylophagan being a species of beetle.)
He then turns much of his attention to even larger matters -how cities and civilisations can die. "Do you know the ghost community?"
"I know, I know the nations past I know, I know they rust at last" -speaking here about how great civilisations can be laid just as low as the figures he talks about in the first verse.
"They tremble with the nervous thought Of having been, at last, forgot"
In the third verse his thoughts of death peak when he things about his own death: "We see a thousand rooms to rest Helping us taste the bite of death"
The places which are named in the choruses are places in Illinoise which are ghost towns. (Shawneetown being one of the more famous.) He's obviously done his research.
I love how the theme of zombies ties the whole thing together. Night of the Living Dead was shot in Pennsylvania though so I'm not too sure of the reason...