I'm not entirely satisfied with the explanations here, so I'll throw in my interpretation of the lyrics.
I think it's all about a stereotypical person who would very easily and perfectly fall for Jim Jones's crazy cult.
The first verse outlines how he's a wanderer type of person, directionless and without any real home. You could infer that he doesn't fit in well, or at least hasn't found somewhere to fit in yet.
The second verse talks about another characteristic of someone who could be fooled by a cult. He talks about how living is getting bad, so obviously he isn't satisfied with his own life, and maybe how life and society is in general. The "don't make me mad" line could possibly be a reference to how he doesn't get along with others, but I'm not so sure on that one.
The final verse I think is when Anton finally gets around to referring to how this guy gets totally brainwashed. He's looking for direction, turning to any and all religions for the direction in life they offer. He eventually goes with Jim Jones, and we all know how that turned out. The Jesus line confuses me, but someone else said it could be about how people came from other religions and now that he's dead, he's back with Jesus. Again, not sure about that one. But I do think the final lines are explicitly about how he's fallen for the cult BS. He fell in deep but learned how to swim, could refer to maybe he was thrown off at first by the strangeness, but eventually it grew on him as his brain was washed. And the final line "now there's no one who's cleaner than me or than him" is about going to the pure beautiful afterlife that Jim promised all his followers before they all committed "revolutionary suicide".
That's a big analysis, but if I had to read into the whole thing and give a meaning and purpose behind all the lines, that would be my take on it. It's a beautifully catchy and happy song nonetheless, even if the narrative is possibly very dark.
I'm not entirely satisfied with the explanations here, so I'll throw in my interpretation of the lyrics.
I think it's all about a stereotypical person who would very easily and perfectly fall for Jim Jones's crazy cult.
The first verse outlines how he's a wanderer type of person, directionless and without any real home. You could infer that he doesn't fit in well, or at least hasn't found somewhere to fit in yet.
The second verse talks about another characteristic of someone who could be fooled by a cult. He talks about how living is getting bad, so obviously he isn't satisfied with his own life, and maybe how life and society is in general. The "don't make me mad" line could possibly be a reference to how he doesn't get along with others, but I'm not so sure on that one.
The final verse I think is when Anton finally gets around to referring to how this guy gets totally brainwashed. He's looking for direction, turning to any and all religions for the direction in life they offer. He eventually goes with Jim Jones, and we all know how that turned out. The Jesus line confuses me, but someone else said it could be about how people came from other religions and now that he's dead, he's back with Jesus. Again, not sure about that one. But I do think the final lines are explicitly about how he's fallen for the cult BS. He fell in deep but learned how to swim, could refer to maybe he was thrown off at first by the strangeness, but eventually it grew on him as his brain was washed. And the final line "now there's no one who's cleaner than me or than him" is about going to the pure beautiful afterlife that Jim promised all his followers before they all committed "revolutionary suicide".
That's a big analysis, but if I had to read into the whole thing and give a meaning and purpose behind all the lines, that would be my take on it. It's a beautifully catchy and happy song nonetheless, even if the narrative is possibly very dark.