Fly On The Wall

I've done a lot of song interpretations before, but this one's challening. I'll give it my best shot.

Trevor begins with a discussion of a vision of heaven. He makes use of contrast between his present state and desired state. His present state is earth where he deals with Satan's temptations, but the desired state is heaven completely in the presence of God. The "kings and queens," are citizens of heaven, because there is no place richer and with more treasures than heaven. Living there is fit for royalty. He then makes a number of contradictions, as if he is being pulled back and forth between Christ and Satan. He senses "cold and dark" creeping up on him, but is then renewed with Christ's "fire." Then he feels "divided," but is reunited with Christ. At one point, he feels "free," because he is the presence of God, but at the next he feels "chained" because Satan is clouding his vision. The cycle is seemingly never-ending. Satan temporarily wins when he can no longer "see it [heaven]," meaning that he has lost sight of Christ and obeying Satan. We compromise "truth" (aka Christ) by sinning. We follow our own desires which reflects a belief that earth can provide more than heaven, making heaven "overrated."

The next stanza is a prayer. Trevor prays for broader perspective and the ability to discern spirits. He wants to "see it all," so he can never be fooled by Satan's tricks. The "fly on the wall" is a metaphor for clear vision. The fly can see all that is around him when he's high up on a wall. Nothing can take him by surprise. Trevor asks that he learn "to accept what he can't control" which is pretty self-explanatory. In this case, he's specifically referring to Satan tempting him. Satan will never let up, and he knows this, but he's praying that God will help him never let up either. He then discusses speaking out for Christ like by sharing testimonies of what God is doing in his life ("share what I saw"). However, he has problems with denial like the disciple Peter did when he claimed to have "never seen [Jesus] before." He's being too quiet about his faith. Finally, Trevor acknowledges that he's let Satan get the best of him, and has allowed him into his "head." He "holds the keys" which is Jesus, the solution to all his problems.

In the third stanza, Trevor basically says to Satan that enough is enough. Notice how the volume of the song dramatically increases at this point. This is because Trevor is no longer being quiet about Christ like he was earlier. He says "I don't think" which expresses uncertainty on his part. This ties back to his inability to discern spirits. He's often not sure if he's dealing with temptations from Satan designed to tear him down or trials from Christ designed to strength him. But he's pretty sure it's Satan because it's unlikely that Christ would cause him this much and type of "hurt and pain," so he tells Satan to "beat it." He asks Christ to "change" him, so that he can be an inhabitant of heaven ("kings and queens"). The solution to his condition is belief. He has a belief problem. The Bible says that if we love Christ, we will obey his commandments. And if we believe Christ existed and did all the things the Bible says he did, how can we not love him? Thus, his issue must be belief, which is why he prays that he can "learn to believe."

Now, the fourth and final new stanza (the others are repeats). Trevor thinks of a plan to fix his problem. He plan is to "build a wall." This is figurative language which expresses his idea to shelter himself away from all harms. He's going to isolate and withdraw himself from temptation. He believes that this will "separate him from all the pain." He begins acting on his plan (building "brick by brick"). He succeeds in executing his plan, but his plan has an unintended consequence. In trying to isolate himself from Satan, he has also isolated himself from Christ, the light, who is "the sun." Being neither in the presence of Christ nor Satan, he "becomes numb," in the presence of nothing. In the final line, he realizes that his plan was misguided. He needs to be in the presence of Christ. The correct approach is to be in the world but not of it, as Paul teaches in the Bible. His motivations were pure, and he was right to pray about it, but he missed the big picture. It's like "making bullets to a broken gun," where the bullets are the details and the broken gun is the big picture. It's best for us to turn to our sword of truth (where the gun is a modern day sword): Christ as revealed in the Bible, and then Christ will provide the bullets we need to fight off Satan.

In stanza 5, Trevor repeats his prayer, because his first plan didn't work. He needs to check with Christ again on what to do.

In stanzas 6 and 7, Trevor emphasizes his mission to resist Satan by repeating his previous declaration two more times. Note that I say resist and not defeat because Christ has already defeated Satan. Christ will show him what to do soon enough. In the meantime, he just needs to "believe."