The Becoming

When life really begins to wear you down, you start to become sort of numb. With so many disappointments, failures, and so on, the narrator starts to get somewhat of an alter-ego. This alter-ego operates like a machine in that it has no real emotions or feelings. The narrator slowly feels as if he's being taken over by it.

This song is a turning point in the album. Mr. Self-Destruct/the Ruiner/the villain of the story launches a massive campaign to completely take over the protagonist. Once he has the controls, he can run the character's life into the ground. He has already been weakened enough throughout the events of all the preceding songs, and now is when he makes his move. The protagonist slowly begins shutting down everything that makes him human. The mechanical voice keeps assuring that the human side of him is broken, wounded, gone forever. However, the human side of him is still there, as shown by the acoustic sections of the song (hiding, backwards inside of me) but it feels like its at an all-time low and may disappear soon (I might just slip away). However, the voice inside his head doesn't let up, it wants him dead.

Somehow, this song reminds me of an artificially modified human, changed and intergrated with computer parts (sort of like a person with cybornetic organs, muscles, brain parts, etc). The "No escape from this / My new consciousness" line is like his train of thought is being replaced by a digital/quantum computer.

The music really makes me think of this person (certainly in no relation to the character in TDS story) going on some kind of violent and unexpected rampage. Sort of like how these characters in movies (something like the mechanised people in "House of 1,000 Corpses") get completely insane, and start destroying people at absolute random. The ear-splitting music near the end gives kind of a high on this thought.

Of course, this explains all but the "I can try to get away, but I've strapped myself in" line. Unless, of course, he signed up for this.

Trent Reznor is slowly 'becoming' (sorry) one of my most favourite lyricists along with the god, Maynard James Keenan...*sigh

I don't mean to gloat, but I have this song completely figured out:

As most of you know, this album, in short, is about a man's downfall into depression/madness and eventual suicide.

The first verse is about how he is changing into and becoming a drug addict. Stuck in the dream is the high that he gets from the drugs.

The chorus is saying that the old him, the one who didn't do drugs and tried to live a good life, is gone. In his place is a person who uses drugs and gets high, because getting high lets him forget about how messed up his life is. If he wasn't high, he'd have bad memories, so instead he gets high.

Read this part carefully: I can try to get away but I've strapped myself in I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears I can see it killing away all of my bad parts I don't want to listen, but it's all too clear

This is the character telling about how in one instance when he got high, he heard a message from inside his head that frightened him. Unfortunately, he did this to himself (getting high) and there's no way to quickly become sober again- he's strapped in. He wants to scratch away the sound (wants to block out the frightening message). He doesn't want to listen but it's all too clear- he is scared of the message but he's aware that it's the right message and he is indeed having these thoughts- it's all too clear. But he doesn't yet tell us what the message is.

Finally, the last part of the song: it won't give up, it wants me dead and goddamn this noise inside my head

This reveals what the scary message that he was hearing before. When he was getting high, the voice was telling him loud and clear that the message wants him dead. The noise in his head won't stop, the message is very clear. It wants him to commit suicide. Shoot, that sucks, but that's the truth. He needs to commit suicide.

There you go, ladies and gents. The true meaning of this song and its place in the overall story of The Downward Spiral- the character's realization (not the act, yet) that he will kill himself.

yeah, I think this about sums up NIN if you could pick one song....

This is one of my favorite songs on The Downward Spiral. To me it is basically about people not knowing who the real you is.

i forget where i heard it, but its theorized that the name "annie" comes from a book by jean paul sartre.

the book nausea is about a writer, antoine roquentin, in the pre-world war II years (i believe.) antoine hates his own existance, and it is about his journey through life. it also features is ex lover, annie (i believe her name is something to that effect...anne, anna, annie...)

the book is about existance, and the hate of ones self. its rather perverse and crude at somepoints as well. it reminds me ALOT ALOT of something trent reznor would read/enjoy.

check out the book. its great "nausea" by jean-paul sartre.

The Darth Vader theory is...interesting, however i highly doubt that's what the meaning of the song is...also, seeing as how i'm not intelligent enough to put in some insight of my own i think i'll stop picking at that before i make someone angry...

Aurally, its a sort of mimicked schizophrenia. The multiple, pained-sounding voices in the background are exaggerated auditory hallucinations ("voices"). At the end of the song, this made even more explicit with the repetition of "goddamn this noise inside my head," spoken in a voice which itself eventually morphs into a voice which is different from the first. In addition, there's a real two sidedness to the song, consisting of the main piece (which is electronic, dissonant, and yelled), and the "Annie" bit (which is acoustic, melodic, and sung). While this particular illness probably isn't within Trent's realm of experience, I think he's making a conscious effort to portray the perceived aesthetic, and it relates to him in the sense that he feels that his mental health has really been pushed beyond his limits.