It seems to me that this song could be interpreted in many ways from individual lines and quotations from the lyrics. That being said, I believe that the seemingly conflicted meanings sung in equally conflicting styles are done so purposefully to show a complexity within the song. To me, the use of action words and "angry" vocals are meant to show the rough and uncompromising facade of man living within a "survival of the fittest" "take or be taken from" society. Whether American is a key descriptive word or not, (for me) is almost irrelevant. The contrast in the other half of the "clean"(and almost unsure) vocals can be seen through the use of terms like, "I dont wanna believe","I don't want to admit", and "I don't want to regret". I believe these segments of the lyrics are meant to demonstrate the emotions or thoughts of a human who does not agree with the same rough, Darwinian capitalistic society as was alluded to within the prior segments of lyrics. I believe that these lines show that a partially self conscious "American" can realize that their morals and beliefs vastly differ from the society which they live in and identify with, however, to fully realize and accept this understanding would cause a conflict of identity which the speaker is yet unprepared to deal with. Just an opinion.
It seems to me that this song could be interpreted in many ways from individual lines and quotations from the lyrics. That being said, I believe that the seemingly conflicted meanings sung in equally conflicting styles are done so purposefully to show a complexity within the song. To me, the use of action words and "angry" vocals are meant to show the rough and uncompromising facade of man living within a "survival of the fittest" "take or be taken from" society. Whether American is a key descriptive word or not, (for me) is almost irrelevant. The contrast in the other half of the "clean"(and almost unsure) vocals can be seen through the use of terms like, "I dont wanna believe","I don't want to admit", and "I don't want to regret". I believe these segments of the lyrics are meant to demonstrate the emotions or thoughts of a human who does not agree with the same rough, Darwinian capitalistic society as was alluded to within the prior segments of lyrics. I believe that these lines show that a partially self conscious "American" can realize that their morals and beliefs vastly differ from the society which they live in and identify with, however, to fully realize and accept this understanding would cause a conflict of identity which the speaker is yet unprepared to deal with. Just an opinion.