Personally I see this song as more the narrator (The devil) mocking someone in a particular faith (I wonder which one) for being led his entire life to believe that simply being religious or having a belief in a God he will be rewarded in an afterlife.
"As a child, with your mind on the horizon
Over corpses, to the prize you kept your eyes on
Trying to be the chosen one"
Religion, intentionally or not, makes people look more towards a future that very likely won't happen, i.e. heaven/an after life, rather than paying attention to the present. This person, even as a kid with his whole life in front of him, is spending his time day dreaming for heaven and wanting to be a good person yet doesn't seem to notice the corpses under his feet that, by not paying attention to, are partially caused by him. These corpses could symbolize anything from actual dead bodies caused by things like war or starvation to any human affliction really like poverty or injustice, etc that he could have helped had he not been looking out to the horizon when everything will be better for everyone. Why help out this hungry kid when in the end we'll all be fed and comfortable in heaven?
To me the chorus and the last verse suggests he's met either God or the Devil in the afterlife and one of them is telling him to cry for absolution, beg for forgiveness for his sins. In my opinion I think it's the Devil talking to this man, the last verse especially is him telling the man "Look at you, you're in Hell and you're still trying to prove to me you're some sort of saint"... Or it could be from the perspective of God condemning the man the Hell saying "Oh, you think you're good enough to get here? You're asking for forgiveness? Oh, you will cry, don't you worry" then hits the lever I assume he has that opens the trap door to Hell, but knowing Ghost I doubt that was the meaning.
All in all I always get a feeling of spite from the narrator to the subject, one how pathetic he is. Look at you sitting in your golden palace in Italy that is meant to praise God, thinking you're getting to heaven while there are people starving in the streets outside. You're a disgrace.
Personally I see this song as more the narrator (The devil) mocking someone in a particular faith (I wonder which one) for being led his entire life to believe that simply being religious or having a belief in a God he will be rewarded in an afterlife.
"As a child, with your mind on the horizon Over corpses, to the prize you kept your eyes on
Trying to be the chosen one"
Religion, intentionally or not, makes people look more towards a future that very likely won't happen, i.e. heaven/an after life, rather than paying attention to the present. This person, even as a kid with his whole life in front of him, is spending his time day dreaming for heaven and wanting to be a good person yet doesn't seem to notice the corpses under his feet that, by not paying attention to, are partially caused by him. These corpses could symbolize anything from actual dead bodies caused by things like war or starvation to any human affliction really like poverty or injustice, etc that he could have helped had he not been looking out to the horizon when everything will be better for everyone. Why help out this hungry kid when in the end we'll all be fed and comfortable in heaven?
To me the chorus and the last verse suggests he's met either God or the Devil in the afterlife and one of them is telling him to cry for absolution, beg for forgiveness for his sins. In my opinion I think it's the Devil talking to this man, the last verse especially is him telling the man "Look at you, you're in Hell and you're still trying to prove to me you're some sort of saint"... Or it could be from the perspective of God condemning the man the Hell saying "Oh, you think you're good enough to get here? You're asking for forgiveness? Oh, you will cry, don't you worry" then hits the lever I assume he has that opens the trap door to Hell, but knowing Ghost I doubt that was the meaning.
All in all I always get a feeling of spite from the narrator to the subject, one how pathetic he is. Look at you sitting in your golden palace in Italy that is meant to praise God, thinking you're getting to heaven while there are people starving in the streets outside. You're a disgrace.