One of my favorite REM songs. As shown by the few comments above, you can really come to different conclusions about it. I have been reading The Gulag Archipelago, so I immediately thought of the many people martyred by the Communist regime under Lenin, Stalin, Berea, etc. The lines, “Gentlemen, mark your opponents \ Fire into your own ranks” makes me think of how fascist regimes only hurt the people they are supposed to be helping.
The really interesting person here is the narrator though. Someone mentioned “The Lottery”. It is almost as if the person who “won” it did a fist pump and shouted, “Sweet!” This guy really wants some kind of meaning in his life and finally finds it by becoming a martyr. In order to “climb”, he has to “fall”. That is the great tragedy in this song to me. Not the committee picking out the “weakest part” to destroy, but a person who can only “fill his heart” by dying. “Someone has to take the fall”, but for what? Are you even a martyr if you don’t have something particular that you are dying for?
One of my favorite REM songs. As shown by the few comments above, you can really come to different conclusions about it. I have been reading The Gulag Archipelago, so I immediately thought of the many people martyred by the Communist regime under Lenin, Stalin, Berea, etc. The lines, “Gentlemen, mark your opponents \ Fire into your own ranks” makes me think of how fascist regimes only hurt the people they are supposed to be helping.
The really interesting person here is the narrator though. Someone mentioned “The Lottery”. It is almost as if the person who “won” it did a fist pump and shouted, “Sweet!” This guy really wants some kind of meaning in his life and finally finds it by becoming a martyr. In order to “climb”, he has to “fall”. That is the great tragedy in this song to me. Not the committee picking out the “weakest part” to destroy, but a person who can only “fill his heart” by dying. “Someone has to take the fall”, but for what? Are you even a martyr if you don’t have something particular that you are dying for?