I'm not buying any of the current explanations about licking two fingers clean. I'm still cogitating on that one.
And I don't agree that this is so specific to the Catholic Church and their particular practices as one person claimed.
But overall it is obviously about religion and death. I rather felt the "chamber pot" might be our earthly bodies, which return to dust and might be recycled to hold another soul later, if souls exist. I think "the hard-headed miracle worker who bathes his hands in blood" is obviously God, the guy who can foresee everything and has unlimited power to fix anything, yet lets little kids get shot in random drive-by shootings. He's just sticking stubbornly to a plan, I guess, right?
The "old man with the telescope" is also God, once again watching and knowing everything but remaining distant and uninvolved.
I think the "deal" in this song is not so much a matter of money, but of belief. Believe in God -- without the clear proof He could effortlessly provide -- and get your ticket to heaven. Some philosopher once pointed out that by believing in God, whether God exists or not, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. That assuming God does not actually hate gullible people, I guess.
I'm not buying any of the current explanations about licking two fingers clean. I'm still cogitating on that one.
And I don't agree that this is so specific to the Catholic Church and their particular practices as one person claimed.
But overall it is obviously about religion and death. I rather felt the "chamber pot" might be our earthly bodies, which return to dust and might be recycled to hold another soul later, if souls exist. I think "the hard-headed miracle worker who bathes his hands in blood" is obviously God, the guy who can foresee everything and has unlimited power to fix anything, yet lets little kids get shot in random drive-by shootings. He's just sticking stubbornly to a plan, I guess, right?
The "old man with the telescope" is also God, once again watching and knowing everything but remaining distant and uninvolved.
I think the "deal" in this song is not so much a matter of money, but of belief. Believe in God -- without the clear proof He could effortlessly provide -- and get your ticket to heaven. Some philosopher once pointed out that by believing in God, whether God exists or not, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. That assuming God does not actually hate gullible people, I guess.