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I beat my machine it's a part of me it's inside of me
I'm stuck in this dream it's changing me I am becoming
The me that you know had some second thoughts
He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
The me that you know doesn't come around much
That part of me isn't here anymore
All pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
Drowns out all I hear there's no escape from this my new consciousness
That me that you know used to have feelings
But the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay
The me that you know is now made up of wires
And even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
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 my bad parts
I don't want to listen but it's all too clear
Hiding backwards inside of me I feel so unafraid
Annie, hold a little tighter I might just slip away
It won't give up it wants me dead
Goddamn this noise inside my head
I'm stuck in this dream it's changing me I am becoming
The me that you know had some second thoughts
He's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
The me that you know doesn't come around much
That part of me isn't here anymore
All pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
Drowns out all I hear there's no escape from this my new consciousness
That me that you know used to have feelings
But the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay
The me that you know is now made up of wires
And even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
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 my bad parts
I don't want to listen but it's all too clear
Hiding backwards inside of me I feel so unafraid
Annie, hold a little tighter I might just slip away
It won't give up it wants me dead
Goddamn this noise inside my head
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Now I do =/
Goddamn this noise inside my head
These lyrics and the claustrophobic wall of sound that closes in at the end of the song as it repeats over and over again embody what it is like to have your own mind plotting against you.
With me, that's ADD. I'm not sure whether Trent has some form of it, but he's certainly had his mental issues. There's something incredibly satisfying about the climax of this song, as horrifying as its subject matter is.
In analyzing the meaning of songs from TDS, you really can't just look at the lyrics. A lot of the meaning is in the music itself. This is a song to listen to with the volume so high it hurts.
The machine is our own counsciousness. He calls it a machine because our consciousness is a product of so much meaningless chaos that it looses any real individuality and purpose. We are animals living mostly by natural instincts. We are a part of the universe more than most people thing about. Our individuality is lost when we conteemplate all that is involved with who we are, what we are and where consciousness fits in.
He is self aware in the whole song. He tries to drown out the aching dirge that seeing into one's empty and meaningless, transitory yet transcendant self can bring. He doesn't want to live a lie that he is a purpose filled regular everyday cog in the machine of society like most people do. He also doesn't want to loose his mind by constantly seeing his life from the vantage that it is all meaningless chaos- which it is really when you get down to it.
it won't give up, it wants me dead
and goddamn this noise inside my head
This part is about how he knows that too much introspection leads to despair which can lead to self destruction, suicide, etc. He won't allow himself to just settle in to this lonely introspection and slef awareness.
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.
This song is obviously about Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks. The machine he speaks of is capitalism. Working in the steel mill (where he toiled 7 nights a week and Sunday) to repay a debt, which as anyone under debt will tell you, left him scarred by and embarassed of his poverty. Never wanting to be back in that position, he elevated money and profit above all others. He made his tremendous fortune no doubt off the backs of the less-fortunate, resorting to a cut-throat mentality to protect what he has, and amass more. He can't hear the screams of people he's working to death in his factories, or see the lives and dreams destroyed as he liquidated his competition.
Annie is the young girl who changes his life and reminds him of his humanity, as he witnesses her compassion and happiness even through poverty. He can look back and see what life was like before becoming a part of the capitalist machine, but it's too late. The almighty dollar is his God now, and all of the horrible things done in his life to aquire that cold hard cash will forever haunt him, and in a way that's what he wants- to pay for his sins of greed.