| Cynic – Evolutionary Sleeper Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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The whole album is within the context of eastern philosophy/enlightenment, so this song is no different. The "circle" is a reference to the "life stream" of reincarnation. His incarnation begins as life "paints" a body over his soul (e.g. his hand). The circle (or life stream) is contained in, and fades inside his heart. Basically another way of saying we're dying from the very beginning. The first part of this song is about birth, figuring out what he is, and "life" is whispering in his ear, as if to say that he is not in control yet. So he washes his hands - he's trying to purify himself and escape the worldly existence (enlightenment). The circle (or life stream) sits outside a door - behind death's door. He concludes the life cycle by whispering at death, just as life whispered to him during birth in the first verse. The rest of the lyrics should make sense without much interpretation. I think the song title, and the last line "evolutionary sleeper" is actually him realizing that "he" is just life stream trapped inside a vehicle, which sleeps through all the chaos of the world. The bodies change, the universe changes, but the life stream never changes. It just sleeps. |
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| Nine Inch Nails – Discipline Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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This is about struggling with using drugs for pleasure and using them for art. Think about all the musicians who took way too much drugs, they sound strung out and have no passion anymore. Trent is asking where his role is in creating music. Is it him, or the drugs talking? He feels it starting up, now acquiring drugs is more important to him than his music. Sound familiar? He can see physical signs of drug abuse, and he's so strung out and addicted, he can't tell if he's actually himself or a corpse doing the bidding of a substance. I only wonder if this is a reflection all drug addicted musicians have to face up to, or if Trent was the only one to acknowledge that it's a problem. Sex? Really guys? Sure, maybe in the sense that those drugs fucked him up. Another familiar theme. |
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| Cynic – Integral Birth Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This isn't so much about Christianity, this is about the human story. It starts off with the narrator looking at the cosmos for signs. He realizes that under the sands of time, there's the "ominous hole" of human beliefs long past, what humans did to find the same truth he is seeking now. The truth rebirths itself, or manifests itself differently. The doves weep in seeing how it manifested before in humans. Later he says, "weep no more, noble silence usher my way home". This is a tribute to meditation, the noble silence is bringing him home to truth, back to the origin, down that hole. In the end he realizes all the lines in the sand, all the cosmic sights, they are only part of a great truth. This "truth" is reborn and he claims it as those before him claimed theirs. | |
| Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This song is about a woman using sex and he is powerless to say no. After sex, it's never happily ever after. It's something else to argue about, and instead of leaving, he's "in debt" to all the things she wants him to do or be, in order to continue the feeling he gets from her. She's telling him what he has to do to get in her good graces again. The "magnet" puts him in perpetual debt where he has to heed her "advice" (or whims). He dies a little everytime he goes through this, he cuts himself romancing her, then has intercourse and is "left black", dead. Throw down the umbilical noose you just killed him with, now let him climb back into the "relationship". The tar pit trap, he stays in this relationship and sets himself up to die again. The entire relationship is a heart-shaped box that he can't get out of. Forever in debt. | |
| Nine Inch Nails – The Fragile Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| This is a complicated song because of the roles. To put it simply, the protagonist is not real. Trent is speaking in first person as the hero he wishes he had, and "she" is actually Trent himself. He had hoped for a hero since the very first song "Somewhat Damaged", and was let down when he felt he didn't get one. He dreamt up this character to act out and the woman he loves is actually what he wishes he meant to someone else. It's tricky, but it works because Trent was waaay too broken to write a love song, he didn't love anyone (he couldn't feel anything!). But he wanted to [be] loved (understood), and this was his way to expressing it. It's all imaginary. Queue the next couple songs, now it should start to make a lot of sense. | |
| Nine Inch Nails – Somewhat Damaged Lyrics | 11 years ago |
| I read that this song was inspired by his relationship with his grandmother, I believe that could explain a good portion of this, although you could substitute any single person of utmost importance. Essentially continuing from Downward Spiral, he tried flying straight, but his mental health was deteriorating the whole time. He finally hits bottom and lets himself go, and all the comforting words he received, while well-intentioned, didn't help at all in the end. He was hoping for someone to see his condition and pull him out of it and he ends up realizing that the person he thought was the closest to him - didn't have the slightest clue he was going through this much suffering, and it makes him even more angry. As if his only real relationship was as superficial as all his others, because of the fact he's dead. He can't help but feel as if they didn't care enough to save him because they didn't. Because this was allowed to happen, he's angry and soon to be even more alone and forgotten on his journey to the very bottom. The following song is like a spiritual-autopsy of just how rotten and gone he is, the only part of him that was alive was a blur of misery, but he is "somewhat damaged", he is somewhat shaken by all of this. The rest of his trip (especially The Wretched: "It didn't turn out the way you wanted it to") is his profound, enduring disappointment and being forced to suffer even more on his way down. The Downward Spiral couldn't prepare him for this pain. | |
| MGMT – Someone's Missing Lyrics | 11 years ago |
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It sounds like someone tormented by religion and all the claims it makes about the world, guilt-tripped by the toll (story), the temptation of neon lures, people being judged and "left behind", the extinct coming alive, etc. He's sort of trivializing it. Lost revelations that he'll never find, in other words so many religions and lost/discarded books, why try? Somewhere there's an honest soul who can make everything better. All the while, in the long hall (yes, hall, this is intentionally visual), pipes are whispering. The gods and angels, prophets and shaman, who are constantly warning you about "the greatest show on earth" that is supposed to happen with some anti-christ. Its a subtle jab at the theatre of it. Meanwhile, people kissing holy stones and crying, see: the wailing wall (Read this next part starting at 1:45) And then, someone's missing. The mood is rising. The resurrection isn't happening. The world isn't ending. Your friends aren't going into eternal hell to be tortured. Its all a story. Jesus is missing, and you know he's not coming back, and all of the stories that made you fearful are just stories. There is no anti-christ, no rapture, and no divine judge. You have nothing to fear. All the talk is white noise. If you think this isn't a good interpretation, listen to 1:41-1:48 rising as he's saying "someone's missing" - which is generally not something to be cheerful about. He's basically saying he's glad the "christ" is missing because the speaker spent the whole song (life) in a melancholy at the possibility of this horrific story of devils and angels being true. Where eschatology ends, hope begins. This is the exact opposite of jordanobrian's interpretation, but I'll let you be the judge. |
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