I think that this song is about coming to terms with a failing relationship. The opening lines are casual, even humorous, as the speaker recounts memories of his reckless youth. He felt free of obligation and he, and the subject of the song, spent their time together getting high and ignoring their responsibilities.
The first stanza sets up a completely different scene involving a pagan sacrificial ritual. In this context, I think that the "sacrificial ritual" is a greater metaphor for the speaker letting down his gaurd for a loved one, because sacrificial rituals usually entail giving something up to gain something else--in this case, the speaker gave up his cool and collected façade to build a relationship with someone.
The speaker then discredits himself by saying that "it wasn't as serious" as he was making it out to be, and that there was no real sacrificial ritual, just him and his loved one getting high and hanging out. The speaker describes a "sacrificial ritual" in order to try to make sense of some great revelation he had while doing something mundane, in this case, while getting high.
The next stanza describes the speaker struggling to get from one place to another, as his feet are "tired". But his loved one's face is all he needs to get him through the ordeal, which suggests that the person in question is very important to him. He's thinking about how "the world mocks [his] magic" because they don't believe in it. The "magic" he's referring to is love, I believe, because he goes on to say that it was "all for [his lover]".
After the chorus, the speaker describes "putting his wrong finger in the hot wax", which I think symbolizes him putting all of his faith into a doomed relationship. The last thing he needs is "a reason to fight back" because he realizes that this relationship is only hurting him, and not really worth salvaging. In the last lines, he confesses that he doesn't have words for the absolute devastation he felt when things with his lover went south--which speaks to the extreme anguish he feels at present while reflecting back on the relationship.
The spoken part at the end describes a relationship that was riddled with infidelity and drug use, and failed, indirectly, as a result of those things. It can be inferred that on some level, this is the kind of relationship that the speaker had with his loved one before things dissolved.
I think that this song is about coming to terms with a failing relationship. The opening lines are casual, even humorous, as the speaker recounts memories of his reckless youth. He felt free of obligation and he, and the subject of the song, spent their time together getting high and ignoring their responsibilities.
The first stanza sets up a completely different scene involving a pagan sacrificial ritual. In this context, I think that the "sacrificial ritual" is a greater metaphor for the speaker letting down his gaurd for a loved one, because sacrificial rituals usually entail giving something up to gain something else--in this case, the speaker gave up his cool and collected façade to build a relationship with someone.
The speaker then discredits himself by saying that "it wasn't as serious" as he was making it out to be, and that there was no real sacrificial ritual, just him and his loved one getting high and hanging out. The speaker describes a "sacrificial ritual" in order to try to make sense of some great revelation he had while doing something mundane, in this case, while getting high.
The next stanza describes the speaker struggling to get from one place to another, as his feet are "tired". But his loved one's face is all he needs to get him through the ordeal, which suggests that the person in question is very important to him. He's thinking about how "the world mocks [his] magic" because they don't believe in it. The "magic" he's referring to is love, I believe, because he goes on to say that it was "all for [his lover]".
After the chorus, the speaker describes "putting his wrong finger in the hot wax", which I think symbolizes him putting all of his faith into a doomed relationship. The last thing he needs is "a reason to fight back" because he realizes that this relationship is only hurting him, and not really worth salvaging. In the last lines, he confesses that he doesn't have words for the absolute devastation he felt when things with his lover went south--which speaks to the extreme anguish he feels at present while reflecting back on the relationship.
The spoken part at the end describes a relationship that was riddled with infidelity and drug use, and failed, indirectly, as a result of those things. It can be inferred that on some level, this is the kind of relationship that the speaker had with his loved one before things dissolved.