You know Im not a musician by any means but I will always remember Kurt Cobain saying that every song has a different meaning to every person and to me every single line of this song speaks, nay screams, literally and figuratively volumes.
I was and am a soldier. I fought in more firefights than I care to remember and lost more best friends than I most people have in a lifetime.
I want to be dead with my friends
Speaks of survivors guilt. Wanting desperately to be dead with your friends because it should've been you that stepped on that IED or took that round but you were two steps away or right behind instead and witnessed your best friends mangled bodies first hand lost in an instant without warning at all.
Where the Iron sharpens the Iron
This line speaks volumes to me. War. The truest and unequivocally most absolute test of physical and mental ability in the history of the world. where literally the metal meets the metal and the victor emerges. Quite literally the shit of legends. Referring back to wanting to be dead with your friends, the only way to enter into Valhalla where scores of worthy warriors await you for all eternity.
When boredom sees the beating of our purple hearts, Against this,
Even gods fight violently in vain,
Those wounded in combat are awarded purple hearts for their service. More than one friend now fights violently in vain of adjusting to a new lifestyle without limbs, dealing with paralysis from the neck down, blindness from having their eyes cut out by roadside IEDs and so on.
What chance could we have stood?
We're the last of the lost,
But now we're the first of the fashionably late.
This also speaks deeply to me of the suicide epidemic facing vets that return home broken from back to back deployments for the last 12 years in what will come to be know as "the endless war". We are the last of our dead friends but were fashionably late to meeting them again in Valhalla. Many are the first because they chose to take their own lives when facing the monumental task of transitioning back to the Real , dealing often with divorce, financial hardship and the injuries of war either seen or unseen.
Loved ones decompose
You'll dance around their bones
Most of us are holy ghosts
All of us are holy ghosts
Watching as you see your friends die one by one, many by their own hand. Attending funerals yearly while trying to keep yourself together and not end up in the same place. You dance and celebrate their lives every memorial day, trying to live your life to the fullest to honor them all the while knowing that you're already a ghost and that you died a long time ago or that you're waiting to get to the low point where suicide seems to be the only way out and you wonder how many times you can pull yourself up out of that pit again. How many more punches can you roll with until there's just no more fight left.
We made the scene when we made a scene
And though it was brief,
It meant everything.
Fighting in battle is the crowning achievement for a warrior. To quote Harvey Dent,'You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." We fought and died together, it was brief but glorious and horrifying all the same and it literally meant everything to you. As if your entire life had been to prepare you for that glorious moment in the sun, put to the test and you passed by coming out alive.
Oh what a pity,
Now they're bound to make us saints.
Against this, even (boys) fight violently in vain,
What chance could we have stood?
Oh what a pity, that we survived and couldn't return to Valhalla with our honored dead. Now their bound to make us saints. Civilians celebrating our sacrifices and scars, making us out to be honored and saintly while not knowing the atrocities of what we've seen or had to do to survive. We,(boys) repress the anger we feel and fight in vain to be understood but are often met with confusion, pity and hate instead by those who have not experienced what we have. What chance could we have stood, coming home with to a society that only praises the killer while there's a war to be fought but then shuns them during peacetime leaving us to die from our demons. What chance indeed.
We're the last of the lost,
But now we're the first of the fashionably late.
I refuse to be the only man put to rest in a mass grave.
You were all there with me.
Once again were the survivors but counting down the time until we can arrive fashionably late to see our brothers again in Valhalla , if we are found worthy. I refuse to be the only man put to rest in a mass grave, speaking of being one of the few warriors buried among the graves of those who did not answer the call. You were all there with me speaking of the almost supernatural bond between warriors on the battle field and the remorse we feel from being without that anymore.
As I said, Im sure this was not the intent of the artitist, or maybe it was but either way. It speaks volumes to me. Til Valhalla.
You know Im not a musician by any means but I will always remember Kurt Cobain saying that every song has a different meaning to every person and to me every single line of this song speaks, nay screams, literally and figuratively volumes.
I was and am a soldier. I fought in more firefights than I care to remember and lost more best friends than I most people have in a lifetime.
I want to be dead with my friends
Speaks of survivors guilt. Wanting desperately to be dead with your friends because it should've been you that stepped on that IED or took that round but you were two steps away or right behind instead and witnessed your best friends mangled bodies first hand lost in an instant without warning at all.
Where the Iron sharpens the Iron
This line speaks volumes to me. War. The truest and unequivocally most absolute test of physical and mental ability in the history of the world. where literally the metal meets the metal and the victor emerges. Quite literally the shit of legends. Referring back to wanting to be dead with your friends, the only way to enter into Valhalla where scores of worthy warriors await you for all eternity.
When boredom sees the beating of our purple hearts, Against this, Even gods fight violently in vain,
Those wounded in combat are awarded purple hearts for their service. More than one friend now fights violently in vain of adjusting to a new lifestyle without limbs, dealing with paralysis from the neck down, blindness from having their eyes cut out by roadside IEDs and so on.
What chance could we have stood? We're the last of the lost, But now we're the first of the fashionably late.
This also speaks deeply to me of the suicide epidemic facing vets that return home broken from back to back deployments for the last 12 years in what will come to be know as "the endless war". We are the last of our dead friends but were fashionably late to meeting them again in Valhalla. Many are the first because they chose to take their own lives when facing the monumental task of transitioning back to the Real , dealing often with divorce, financial hardship and the injuries of war either seen or unseen.
Loved ones decompose You'll dance around their bones Most of us are holy ghosts All of us are holy ghosts
Watching as you see your friends die one by one, many by their own hand. Attending funerals yearly while trying to keep yourself together and not end up in the same place. You dance and celebrate their lives every memorial day, trying to live your life to the fullest to honor them all the while knowing that you're already a ghost and that you died a long time ago or that you're waiting to get to the low point where suicide seems to be the only way out and you wonder how many times you can pull yourself up out of that pit again. How many more punches can you roll with until there's just no more fight left.
We made the scene when we made a scene And though it was brief, It meant everything.
Fighting in battle is the crowning achievement for a warrior. To quote Harvey Dent,'You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." We fought and died together, it was brief but glorious and horrifying all the same and it literally meant everything to you. As if your entire life had been to prepare you for that glorious moment in the sun, put to the test and you passed by coming out alive.
Oh what a pity, Now they're bound to make us saints. Against this, even (boys) fight violently in vain, What chance could we have stood?
Oh what a pity, that we survived and couldn't return to Valhalla with our honored dead. Now their bound to make us saints. Civilians celebrating our sacrifices and scars, making us out to be honored and saintly while not knowing the atrocities of what we've seen or had to do to survive. We,(boys) repress the anger we feel and fight in vain to be understood but are often met with confusion, pity and hate instead by those who have not experienced what we have. What chance could we have stood, coming home with to a society that only praises the killer while there's a war to be fought but then shuns them during peacetime leaving us to die from our demons. What chance indeed.
We're the last of the lost, But now we're the first of the fashionably late. I refuse to be the only man put to rest in a mass grave. You were all there with me.
Once again were the survivors but counting down the time until we can arrive fashionably late to see our brothers again in Valhalla , if we are found worthy. I refuse to be the only man put to rest in a mass grave, speaking of being one of the few warriors buried among the graves of those who did not answer the call. You were all there with me speaking of the almost supernatural bond between warriors on the battle field and the remorse we feel from being without that anymore.
As I said, Im sure this was not the intent of the artitist, or maybe it was but either way. It speaks volumes to me. Til Valhalla.