I think this song is about how terrorism and the ensueing paranoia put an end to individual freedom. The first verse shows the twisted and inflated mind of the terrorist. Fortunately many end up in The Hague's I.C.C., but nevertheless the sad outcome is war and loss of individual rights: 'Democracy's shackled hands'. Think of the loss of privacy through all those measures of control! 'A murderer still on the lam' refers imho to Bin Laden. And isn't the inside material of cars usually styrofoam? In that case the line could be referring to just another carbomb-driver on the interstate. The terrorist's acts have led to war, to 'cities encircled in iron', i.e. tanks and barbed wire, and all this while the world around us falls apart: war in the East, the melting of the ice in the North, the West gripped by fear and chaos (crashing cars), and continueing absence of rain in the South. Armageddon indeed! And the irony is that it's all done in the name of Freedom, but ultimately with the opposite and devastating results.
I think this song is about how terrorism and the ensueing paranoia put an end to individual freedom. The first verse shows the twisted and inflated mind of the terrorist. Fortunately many end up in The Hague's I.C.C., but nevertheless the sad outcome is war and loss of individual rights: 'Democracy's shackled hands'. Think of the loss of privacy through all those measures of control! 'A murderer still on the lam' refers imho to Bin Laden. And isn't the inside material of cars usually styrofoam? In that case the line could be referring to just another carbomb-driver on the interstate. The terrorist's acts have led to war, to 'cities encircled in iron', i.e. tanks and barbed wire, and all this while the world around us falls apart: war in the East, the melting of the ice in the North, the West gripped by fear and chaos (crashing cars), and continueing absence of rain in the South. Armageddon indeed! And the irony is that it's all done in the name of Freedom, but ultimately with the opposite and devastating results.