Dirty Whirlwind

My favorite TVOTR song, and frankly, I'm surprised at the number of reasonable responses to this song. Lyrically speaking, TVOTR usually conveys very simple messages through interesting (sometimes complex) metaphor. I speak my opinion based on their first three albums, as I haven't heard anything beyond that at the time of this writing.

This song, as many have said, is about sex and relationship. A simple concept, but the beauty of it is it's clever use of ballad-like story telling and the tying of mythology. For my interpretation, let's look at the lyrics...

"Oh there is a murderess amongst us Her love is a violent spiral Hurling in upon us, conjured up At the birth of the world"

Aside from the cool fact that the intro lyrics and drums intensify the beat of the slow intro, this passage relates the beginning of a love/hate relationship between man and woman. Love, or at least infatuation, is evident from the use of the word "love", yet her love is violent spiral: a turmoil. A "murderess", suggest she is in it for the disastrous end game. Not murder in the literal sense here, but she is destined to do harm. The last phrase sets the stage for the second part, a mythological metaphor for the dark side of femininity.

"Durga is a dancer Mindless questions find no answers Slicing through the ether Yeah she's gleaming like mother of pearl"

Durga is a Devi in the Hindu religion. Depending on what subset of Hinduism you look at this meaning varies, but generally speaking Durga is an active female aspect of the divine. So you can think of Durga as a goddess. And she's an angry one, the fighter of the lot. Also important is that, since she's a goddess (she's actually just one aspect of a greater divinity, but let's not get into that) she exist outside the realm of mortal karma. She is independent and does what she pleases. She answers to no one. This further serves the songs' metaphor as she "slices through through the ether" and gleams "like mother of pearl". Shes is stand alone, doing as she pleases. "Mindless questions find no answers" should be an obvious enough. One seeks to understand something ethereal, yet falls short. More literally, it means seeking to understand the inner motives and workings of this girl (the one the Durga embodies) is useless. The line "Durga is dancer" is reminiscent of Hindu culture in which women perform a dance to honor Durga. Sometime these dances are performed with fire or steel in the dancer's hand. This gives you a further idea of Durga's active element in Hindu tradtion. After all, you don't perform a fire or sword dance for a god/goddess of peace.

"Dirty little whirlwind Commander, controller I found you... Defender, destroyer I found you... Tangled up in the flesh of a girl"

"Dirty little whirlwind" takes this abstract concept of Durga and brings it down to earth, calling her dirty for her vile methods (not to mention her personality in bed), and yet still detaching her by personifying her as a whirlwind. She is "commander, controller" for both her authoritative detachment and her manipulation. "I found you" is to mean that the storyteller wants to find this situation. He wants to find himself in this place, and realizing it is both a blessing and a curse. A predicament isn't necessarily without its benfits, after all. "Defender, destroyer" is both a homage to Hinduism's duality of death and life, and a literal acknowledgment of the girl in the story as being both a savior and the cause of relationship's eventual downfall.

"skull can't save face"

One of my favorite lines in this song. No matter how bright a skeleton smiles, you're still looking back at a skeleton.

I'm running out of space, so I'll wrap this up. In the end, this song creates a ballad of a sailor, "All that I ever wanted to be was destroyed at sea". He was lost at sea at wished to die at sea. Think of a Greek sailor aboard the Argo in the stories of Homer. Those men faced many trials, but perhaps most pertinent to this story is the trial of the Sirens. Men leaped overboard to their own deaths by the draw of the Siren song. Those Sirens "salvaged calamity". Such is the power of a woman, the dirty little whirwind. I realize this is sexist (through male or female views), but this is art. You can dislike it, but this is the essence of the song. It's about a human being seeking his/her desire, knowing it is the death of him/her and being relentlessly drawn in anyway. This is the song. So be you man or woman, I expect anyone of experience knows what it's like to pursue the potentially fatal.