This is undoubtedly a song about the overwhelming and omnipresent danger of nuclear war. "The Radiance" refers directly to the passage from the Bhagavad-Gita which the Manhattan Project's scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted just after the detonation of the world's first nuclear device in the New Mexico desert in 1945 - "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
The whole rest of the song turns on that axis of meaning. Never before have men been able to devastate the entire Earth by the actions of a few thousand men (the combined nuclear forces of the world's nuclear powers).
The song's refrain
"God bless us everyone
We're a broken people living under a loaded gun
And it can't be outfought
It can't be outdone
It can't be outmatched
It can't be outrun"
is a mature assessment of today's predicament - the genie of nuclear fission can't be pressed back inside its bottle because the principles of its operation are comparatively easy for even nonmathematicians to grasp - if you squeeze enough fissionable metal in just such a way, you can burn out a hundred thousand lives (at least). If the North Koreans can do it, anyone can.
I agree with corerulez above - "The Messenger" contains the only solution to the nuclear conundrum - the power of the human heart to choose love:
"When you've suffered enough
And your spirit is breaking
Your growing desperate from the fight
Remember your love
And you always will be
This melody will bring you right back home
When life leaves us blind
Love keeps us kind
When life leaves us blind
Love keeps us kind "
For if it wasn't nuclear physics, black biology would have given Man the power to destroy himself with a relative flick of the finger this century, anyway. Stephen King's "The Stand" describes that process in all too graphic a way.
And if we had not developed nuclear or biological warfare, nanotechnolgy would have given Man still another way to foul his nest. We need to all learn the power of love and teach it to our children.
This is undoubtedly a song about the overwhelming and omnipresent danger of nuclear war. "The Radiance" refers directly to the passage from the Bhagavad-Gita which the Manhattan Project's scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted just after the detonation of the world's first nuclear device in the New Mexico desert in 1945 - "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
The whole rest of the song turns on that axis of meaning. Never before have men been able to devastate the entire Earth by the actions of a few thousand men (the combined nuclear forces of the world's nuclear powers).
The song's refrain
"God bless us everyone We're a broken people living under a loaded gun And it can't be outfought It can't be outdone It can't be outmatched It can't be outrun"
is a mature assessment of today's predicament - the genie of nuclear fission can't be pressed back inside its bottle because the principles of its operation are comparatively easy for even nonmathematicians to grasp - if you squeeze enough fissionable metal in just such a way, you can burn out a hundred thousand lives (at least). If the North Koreans can do it, anyone can.
I agree with corerulez above - "The Messenger" contains the only solution to the nuclear conundrum - the power of the human heart to choose love:
"When you've suffered enough And your spirit is breaking Your growing desperate from the fight Remember your love And you always will be This melody will bring you right back home
When life leaves us blind Love keeps us kind When life leaves us blind Love keeps us kind "
For if it wasn't nuclear physics, black biology would have given Man the power to destroy himself with a relative flick of the finger this century, anyway. Stephen King's "The Stand" describes that process in all too graphic a way.
And if we had not developed nuclear or biological warfare, nanotechnolgy would have given Man still another way to foul his nest. We need to all learn the power of love and teach it to our children.