The title is probably an allusion to the novel by J.G. Ballard.
In earlier days people could pay to 'tour' lunatic asylums and look at the inmates, it was a popular attraction, much like going to the zoo. The British artist William Hogarth has an engraving of this, 'In the Madhouse' as part of his A Rake's Progress series.
Roman arenas, nothing more need be said.
You'll see the horrors of a faraway place
Meet the architects of law face to face
See mass murder on a scale you've never seen
The law as a theme figures prominently in Kafka's writing (the story: The Law, the incomplete novel: The Trial, a fragment: The Problem of our Laws) the later of which is particular in that it asks directly what Ian promises that one will 'see'. It is not clear whether this is being referenced directly here but it is undoutable that Kafka was a strongly relevant to Ian, both in art and spirit.
A more literal reading to meeting the 'architects of law' is that the listener is going to see those in power who make the law as they really are (face to face). As opposed to their generally abstract nature that a person who is born in a society is confronted with - where all the laws have already been invented codified and set into stone without his say.
To 'see mass murder' seems to imply Hitler and Fascism as a referents, though the ambiguous use suggests that it was obviously meant to encompass more than that. (Both the name and origins of the band, as well as other songs such as Walked In Line, bear closer to these themes.)
This is the way, step inside
This is the way, step inside
Take my hand and I'll show you what was and will be
Essentially the narrator is inviting the listener 'IN' he is going to relate the world of past and future the and promises that it will be an 'Atrocity Exhibition'.
The title is probably an allusion to the novel by J.G. Ballard.
In earlier days people could pay to 'tour' lunatic asylums and look at the inmates, it was a popular attraction, much like going to the zoo. The British artist William Hogarth has an engraving of this, 'In the Madhouse' as part of his A Rake's Progress series.
Roman arenas, nothing more need be said.
You'll see the horrors of a faraway place Meet the architects of law face to face See mass murder on a scale you've never seen
The law as a theme figures prominently in Kafka's writing (the story: The Law, the incomplete novel: The Trial, a fragment: The Problem of our Laws) the later of which is particular in that it asks directly what Ian promises that one will 'see'. It is not clear whether this is being referenced directly here but it is undoutable that Kafka was a strongly relevant to Ian, both in art and spirit.
A more literal reading to meeting the 'architects of law' is that the listener is going to see those in power who make the law as they really are (face to face). As opposed to their generally abstract nature that a person who is born in a society is confronted with - where all the laws have already been invented codified and set into stone without his say.
To 'see mass murder' seems to imply Hitler and Fascism as a referents, though the ambiguous use suggests that it was obviously meant to encompass more than that. (Both the name and origins of the band, as well as other songs such as Walked In Line, bear closer to these themes.)
This is the way, step inside This is the way, step inside
Take my hand and I'll show you what was and will be
Essentially the narrator is inviting the listener 'IN' he is going to relate the world of past and future the and promises that it will be an 'Atrocity Exhibition'.