Entropy

This song literally sent chills down my spine when I heard it. I've seen this song in a few different ways, all specific situations, so I'll generalize it as much as possible.

I'd have to go with war. Not necessarily your typical idea of war, the one with guns and soldiers and whatnot, but I also as personal battles. This could be a personal battle with drugs or maybe even something like spousal abuse.

When I heard "The thought that God has taken sides", however, it made that idea more clear to me, especially with inner battles. Sometimes one feels like God just abandoned them as they lay in their own remorse, trying to save themselves. God took the side of giving up on them.

But the song is sung so fiercely. It really surprised me. ^^;

Like Mikenno, I agree it's about war. Does God take sides in war? The current conflict in Iraq is supposedly about just that. Each side believese it's justified in their action by what their God says is right. At least their leaders do.

"When does enough become enough? When does "no" have meaning?"

When we keep telling our leaders no, we don't want that. We're not background noise. We may have to shout louder to be heard.

I also felt this song to be incredibly hard-hitting...It's more than a protest song. It's somber realism for us who would rather just talk the talk. Like amethyst42 pointed out, it's not enough to simply utter your complaints against war and administration, it takes energy and volume to emerge from the "background noise". Otherwise, there will be no one waiting.

I concure with Mikenno, it is very fiercely sung indeed. Righteous indignation, maybe rage turned into determination. Something like that. Where does the rage come from then? I'm not sure, but some great injustice it seems. Not just one person, but many. Maybe all people in a sense.

i think this song is about how war does not resolve anything. and how you can tell the government to stop because thery're wasting lives and money it doesn't get through. in one ear and out the next.

anyway enough of that i worked out what notes he's playing and i can play along to this song on bass YAY!

I can completely connect this to the US-Iraq thing. "The thought that God has taken sides" since it is basically a war of religion. "When does enough become enough? When does "no" have meaning?" Take a poll, see how many people want our troops to be in Iraq. Background noise is the citizens. "Abusing love and, like a child, Inflicting pain upon itself" Since US is really only hurting itself by ruining relations with the middle east

"Disconnected, but not alone". That's a powerful sentence. Even if you're feeling lost and misadjusted, you'll never be alone with feeling that way. This can be applied to any feeling of suffering. We are so many humans on this earth. One is never alone. And even though one may have experienced something noone else ever will, or have, we are all humans and we all work in a very similar way, obviously. It's easy to forget that, though. Or even come to that conclusion. So hard, when all the suffering blinds you. When in that topic, "Abusing love and, like a child, Inflicting pain upon itself", gets me thinking of how i handle emotions. However, since the rest fo the song feels more inclined towards the entire human race, i remain with the theory that this is something characteristic for the human. Always, out interpretations get in the way. And much to often, we judge without sufficient information. Even if you may be the most intelligent person in the world, you cannot have good judgement in a question you do no not know enough of.

Mikenno & amethyst42 are both on the right path with this. Waldemar once again in a world of its own. Not a good one.

Entropy: 1: a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system that is also usually considered to be a measure of the system's disorder, that is a property of the system's state, and that varies directly with any reversible change in heat in the system and inversely with the temperature of the system; broadly : the degree of disorder or uncertainty in a system 2 a: the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity b: a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder 3: chaos, disorganization, randomness

VNV NATION "SONG MEANINGS" INSIDE 15 page interview with Ronan Harris.

dancemusic.about.com/od/artistshomepages/a/VnVNationInt.htm

The song isn't a war song, it's a song for society. Entropy, as quoted, referrs both to chaos and to "a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder". The passage quoted by Higurashi is best applied when added to the subsequent statement, 'scream to the tune of the backgroud noise'. References to social decay, a disillusion with society, run throughout the song. Lines such as those mentioned and the image of a person self-inflicting pain reference to a system in which people are publicly happy but privately miserable, where material and externality have replaced the content of one's actions, and where order and values are degrading into , well, entropy.