This song seems to set the mood for the entire album, which is known for it's themes of splintered or alternating personalities and the memories of the horrors involved in growing up.
It's difficult to ascertain whether the first verse is referring to literal "overexposed" lights, floor-marks, and an "explosive" place behind a door, or if these are simply tangible interpretations of psychological or figurative constructs. In the case of trauma victims, literal and figurative interpretations both tend to express the terror of individual realities.
I imagine the singer (arguably someone other than Brian) standing in a place where very painful experiences played out, a place that (s)he has been away from for a great deal of time. The overexposed lights and "marks on the floor" seem familiar in an unsettling way. The marks leading to the door give a sense that someone had been dragged kicking and screaming through the door at some point. Upon viewing the door, the singer is hit with an "explosive" wave of recollection, traumatic stress, and emotion, which he/she cannot avoid reliving after years of trying to repress them.
The singer comes "back," punching the air after awakening from the nightmare of the memories, again giving us the sense of helplessness that (s)he cannot escape from. (S)he expresses this episode as a "sneak attack" to "disrupt and smear" all the "laid tracks" or hard work that was put into suppressing the memories and emotions in order to appear normal and functional. When the singer claims to have broken off from the pavement, we are given a sense of dissociation, as if (s)he is frantically and unconsciously trying to disconnect from everything associated with the trauma, but nonchalantly laments that (s)he is merely a broken off piece of a whole being, hinting at the aforementioned splintered personality.
The next verse describes the birth of a new personality or "new skin" and it's desire to have control without having to share this control with the other selves. It is fully aware of the other selves, and "disables the muscles and bones so they won't try to walk on their own."
The newly reborn personality fulfills it's function by having "nothing to hide" effectively repressing the traumatic memories once again in a cycle that is continually repeated. The line "the ground I want to explore doesn't feel like before" indicates that this rebirth, though having occurred many times before, is different in a way.
The singer then laments that this "new skin" feels ordinary, and perhaps a bit uninteresting. An indeterminate "you" (perhaps a friend, love interest, parental figure or even self) likes things that "don't grow inside" the singer because of his/her fractured nature and the suppressed experiences that would otherwise accompany the development of identity. Because these experiences are buried so deeply, the singer realized that (s)he is nothing but an empty shell of a person, which is the cost of living life this way.
This song seems to set the mood for the entire album, which is known for it's themes of splintered or alternating personalities and the memories of the horrors involved in growing up.
It's difficult to ascertain whether the first verse is referring to literal "overexposed" lights, floor-marks, and an "explosive" place behind a door, or if these are simply tangible interpretations of psychological or figurative constructs. In the case of trauma victims, literal and figurative interpretations both tend to express the terror of individual realities.
I imagine the singer (arguably someone other than Brian) standing in a place where very painful experiences played out, a place that (s)he has been away from for a great deal of time. The overexposed lights and "marks on the floor" seem familiar in an unsettling way. The marks leading to the door give a sense that someone had been dragged kicking and screaming through the door at some point. Upon viewing the door, the singer is hit with an "explosive" wave of recollection, traumatic stress, and emotion, which he/she cannot avoid reliving after years of trying to repress them.
The singer comes "back," punching the air after awakening from the nightmare of the memories, again giving us the sense of helplessness that (s)he cannot escape from. (S)he expresses this episode as a "sneak attack" to "disrupt and smear" all the "laid tracks" or hard work that was put into suppressing the memories and emotions in order to appear normal and functional. When the singer claims to have broken off from the pavement, we are given a sense of dissociation, as if (s)he is frantically and unconsciously trying to disconnect from everything associated with the trauma, but nonchalantly laments that (s)he is merely a broken off piece of a whole being, hinting at the aforementioned splintered personality.
The next verse describes the birth of a new personality or "new skin" and it's desire to have control without having to share this control with the other selves. It is fully aware of the other selves, and "disables the muscles and bones so they won't try to walk on their own."
The newly reborn personality fulfills it's function by having "nothing to hide" effectively repressing the traumatic memories once again in a cycle that is continually repeated. The line "the ground I want to explore doesn't feel like before" indicates that this rebirth, though having occurred many times before, is different in a way.
The singer then laments that this "new skin" feels ordinary, and perhaps a bit uninteresting. An indeterminate "you" (perhaps a friend, love interest, parental figure or even self) likes things that "don't grow inside" the singer because of his/her fractured nature and the suppressed experiences that would otherwise accompany the development of identity. Because these experiences are buried so deeply, the singer realized that (s)he is nothing but an empty shell of a person, which is the cost of living life this way.