So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Through acrid clouds of summer flies
The garden swells with a thousand more wise
Forever flung to celestial dreams
Clawing at the grave of the dead nazarene
I watch the storm approaching
The darkness calls my name
The trees are growing restless
They feel the season change
Their fruit has putrefied
Forbidden once and bound to die
The thread of life lies severed
On the brink of paradise
Grinning winds of hate unfurled
Dash towers tall that grip the sun
Talons stretch her veil
Reclamation, our time has come
Autumn spreads its golden wings
And lays the path for those unseen
A tangled web of evil spun at last
Winter spawn from barren thighs
To readdress, to slay the blind
And throw the reins untethered to the skies
They pray to the full moon rising
Diana moving with such infinite grace
Wrapped alone in a blanket of nightfall
How many secrets can they read by your face?
Will they know of majesty
Of beauty held in dream-dead sleep
And scarlet seas that bleed the frozen shores?
Will their "god" of bridled love
Assuage our rule from planes above
Or shrink in fear from Chaos roused for war?
War!
Wrest askew the nails
That have held you, lurking deep
September prayers are waning
Burn the shrines of fettered sheep
Spearhead the insurrection
Of a world that seeks no end
"We are what we are, what we shall be, again..."
Appear; draped in terror
To the comfort of your kin
Stain the milky sunset red
And let the other in...
Summer's dying...
The garden swells with a thousand more wise
Forever flung to celestial dreams
Clawing at the grave of the dead nazarene
I watch the storm approaching
The darkness calls my name
The trees are growing restless
They feel the season change
Their fruit has putrefied
Forbidden once and bound to die
The thread of life lies severed
On the brink of paradise
Grinning winds of hate unfurled
Dash towers tall that grip the sun
Talons stretch her veil
Reclamation, our time has come
Autumn spreads its golden wings
And lays the path for those unseen
A tangled web of evil spun at last
Winter spawn from barren thighs
To readdress, to slay the blind
And throw the reins untethered to the skies
They pray to the full moon rising
Diana moving with such infinite grace
Wrapped alone in a blanket of nightfall
How many secrets can they read by your face?
Will they know of majesty
Of beauty held in dream-dead sleep
And scarlet seas that bleed the frozen shores?
Will their "god" of bridled love
Assuage our rule from planes above
Or shrink in fear from Chaos roused for war?
War!
Wrest askew the nails
That have held you, lurking deep
September prayers are waning
Burn the shrines of fettered sheep
Spearhead the insurrection
Of a world that seeks no end
"We are what we are, what we shall be, again..."
Appear; draped in terror
To the comfort of your kin
Stain the milky sunset red
And let the other in...
Summer's dying...
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I think most of the posters here have it right. This song is sung from a pagan or anti-Christian perspective, and uses the end of summer/the onset of autumn and winter as an extended metaphor for the impending battle between Christians and pagans. A significant aspect of this correlation between the changing seasons and the war described here is that, just as summer’s bounty will inevitably fall to decay and barrenness when autumn and then winter come about, the pagan’s victory over the Christian God and his “sheep” is assured, unavoidable.