Perpetual_Peace, everything you say is right on. There's all kinds of metaphor to be read into the lyrics, but everything you've said is what NP intended with this song. Zuckertalert, all those names and phrases are there, but they're metaphors for Bush's U.S. policies, not simply literal discussions of the bible. NP are definitely literary lyricists and they've got their references down. This song is a straight-up clear indictment and Neko Case sings her lines with such a heartbreaking, yearning, wistful keening that it makes the political emotional -- it almost has that "saudade" of Portuguese fado in a way, as if Bush wiped out everything that came before, leaving us aching with longing for a time so far past that we can't even remember what it was like to feel pride in America... GENIUSES!
Perpetual_Peace, everything you say is right on. There's all kinds of metaphor to be read into the lyrics, but everything you've said is what NP intended with this song. Zuckertalert, all those names and phrases are there, but they're metaphors for Bush's U.S. policies, not simply literal discussions of the bible. NP are definitely literary lyricists and they've got their references down. This song is a straight-up clear indictment and Neko Case sings her lines with such a heartbreaking, yearning, wistful keening that it makes the political emotional -- it almost has that "saudade" of Portuguese fado in a way, as if Bush wiped out everything that came before, leaving us aching with longing for a time so far past that we can't even remember what it was like to feel pride in America... GENIUSES!