To me there's a definite anti-religious sentiment in these words, with phrases like "cold catholic church" and "sad reminders" being associated with Church-going. The two events that must be looked at closely here are the quotes and the narrator's subsequent emotional response to them:
"
'God, do you look evil in the dark?'
That made me feel good"
It seems that merely questioning the morality of God brings about a positive emotional response in the narrator, as if to suggest that the mysterious aspects of life are good merely by that very quality of mystery, and not through the predetermination of religion.
In the second quote:
"And said, 'Mom and dad, is it a boy or a girl?
Mom and dad, is it a he or a she?'
That made me feel good"
To me the first thought that comes to my mind on the subject of 'he or she' that is being referred to, is God itself. This is the only deduction that seems reasonable in the religious tone of this song. Also, the daughter asking her parents about this suggests that this would be a child asking this, and therefore innocent to the aspects of religion that adults take for granted (such as the gender of God).
Once again religion is undermined so that the narrator can experience childhood the way it was meant to be experienced--with childlike wonder and abandon.
To me there's a definite anti-religious sentiment in these words, with phrases like "cold catholic church" and "sad reminders" being associated with Church-going. The two events that must be looked at closely here are the quotes and the narrator's subsequent emotional response to them:
" 'God, do you look evil in the dark?'
That made me feel good"
It seems that merely questioning the morality of God brings about a positive emotional response in the narrator, as if to suggest that the mysterious aspects of life are good merely by that very quality of mystery, and not through the predetermination of religion.
In the second quote:
"And said, 'Mom and dad, is it a boy or a girl? Mom and dad, is it a he or a she?'
That made me feel good"
To me the first thought that comes to my mind on the subject of 'he or she' that is being referred to, is God itself. This is the only deduction that seems reasonable in the religious tone of this song. Also, the daughter asking her parents about this suggests that this would be a child asking this, and therefore innocent to the aspects of religion that adults take for granted (such as the gender of God).
Once again religion is undermined so that the narrator can experience childhood the way it was meant to be experienced--with childlike wonder and abandon.