The song is an interpretation of Genesis 19:1-2, as the title indicates. In that passage Lot extends hospitality to two angels, who will save him and his family but destroy the rest of the city. A part of the refrain of this song - "the two angels came to Sodom in the evening" - is a direct quotation from 19:1, as it is rendered in the NRSV and elsewhere.
The key point of 19:1-2 is that Lot is already sitting in Sodom's gateway when the angels arrive - as though he were expecting them. This song depicts Lot's suffering as he awaits the angels, waits until he "[sees them] coming up the boulevard." On the one hand everyone Lot knows, whether important or not, is in Sodom, behind him ("her and all the others lined up behind the gate"); on the other hand, he has the material possessions he needs to survive (a camera, a felt tip marker, money, "everything [he] needed"). His suffering lies in knowing that everything he loves will perish at the hands of people he will entertain, even though he himself will survive. This pain is captured in the metaphor of the intense red of a setting sun as "bleeding all over [him]."
The song is an interpretation of Genesis 19:1-2, as the title indicates. In that passage Lot extends hospitality to two angels, who will save him and his family but destroy the rest of the city. A part of the refrain of this song - "the two angels came to Sodom in the evening" - is a direct quotation from 19:1, as it is rendered in the NRSV and elsewhere.
The key point of 19:1-2 is that Lot is already sitting in Sodom's gateway when the angels arrive - as though he were expecting them. This song depicts Lot's suffering as he awaits the angels, waits until he "[sees them] coming up the boulevard." On the one hand everyone Lot knows, whether important or not, is in Sodom, behind him ("her and all the others lined up behind the gate"); on the other hand, he has the material possessions he needs to survive (a camera, a felt tip marker, money, "everything [he] needed"). His suffering lies in knowing that everything he loves will perish at the hands of people he will entertain, even though he himself will survive. This pain is captured in the metaphor of the intense red of a setting sun as "bleeding all over [him]."