My take on this song is Daniel's message. This is the Biblical Daniel and his message about judgment and liberation, to keep the faith, because God's care will take care Sufjan in the end. He mentions God's grace. It keeps him from stopping at the Holiday Inn, or from driving the car into the canyon.
My take on the abusive elements is how without his faith, he'd likely do himself in, that living with the memory of his mother's abuse when she was alive, and now living with the ghost of those memories consumed him. In his mind, and in his heart he always return to her, how she never showed him the kind of love a boy deserves from Mom, instead how she abandoned and hurt him.
My take on this song is Daniel's message. This is the Biblical Daniel and his message about judgment and liberation, to keep the faith, because God's care will take care Sufjan in the end. He mentions God's grace. It keeps him from stopping at the Holiday Inn, or from driving the car into the canyon. My take on the abusive elements is how without his faith, he'd likely do himself in, that living with the memory of his mother's abuse when she was alive, and now living with the ghost of those memories consumed him. In his mind, and in his heart he always return to her, how she never showed him the kind of love a boy deserves from Mom, instead how she abandoned and hurt him.