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.
live in America
With a pair of Payless shoes
The upper peninsula
And the television news
And I've seen my wife
At the K-Mart
In strange ideas
We live apart
I live in a trailer home
With a snow mobile, my car
The window is broken out
And the interstate is far
I drove all night
To find my child
In strange ideas
He's been revived
In strange ideas
In stranger times
I've no idea
What's right sometimes
I lost my mind
I lost my life
I lost my job
I lost my wife
With a pair of Payless shoes
The upper peninsula
And the television news
And I've seen my wife
At the K-Mart
In strange ideas
We live apart
I live in a trailer home
With a snow mobile, my car
The window is broken out
And the interstate is far
I drove all night
To find my child
In strange ideas
He's been revived
In strange ideas
In stranger times
I've no idea
What's right sometimes
I lost my mind
I lost my life
I lost my job
I lost my wife
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"Now there is something like 4,500. That's crazy. Today there isn't always a lot of work up there, unemployment is high, so is alcoholism."
I got to Michigan Tech University, a school of about 8,000 people located in the Kewanee. This population estimate might be not counting the college, but Houghton and it's neighboring town Hancock are both vibrant communities.
Also, Calumet, located in the center of the Kewanee was very nearly the capital of Michigan, as it was one time the wealthiest county in the United States.
The Upper Peninsula is not some barren wasteland and his home to three colleges and a ton of amazing places to camp, sight-see, and investigate.
The 3rd greatest song ever written.
all in my opinion...
v1: patriotism, generic strip mall consumerism, t.v. news and K-mart. the background is set - lower/middle class, low population town of the typical consumer. in this case the town also carries the stigma of having once thrived and is now decidely not doing so. and although i'm sure the u.p. is beautiful and peaceful, i don't believe the character in the song is experiencing it as such. this other side of the scene is also set here in verse one - a man who sees his wife, with in the very least this barrier of 'strange ideas', the recurring point in the song, between them. the ideas that they are divorced, that they are so distant they bump into one another at the store, or that he watches her indulging in her consumerism from an almost out-of-body perspective because he is so unable to connect with that consumerism are all possibilities, none concretely 'provable'. they also do not really effect the theme of the song - this man feels a distance from his wife, caused or worsened by his/these 'strange ideas, and on some level noticing a certain banality in his environment. (again, this isn't picking on the u.p. - the first line is 'I live in America' and this scene could happen many places in this country.) v2: further personalize scene - this guy's life sucks. live's in a trailer, it's winter and he's plowin snow when he drives it's so high, broken window in his ride to boot and the journey is gonna be long, he lives out in the middle of nowhere. second part is his strange ideas again, this time causing his child (literal or figurative, again is not really important or truly knowable) that he has put a lot of time into 'finding'. whether this is his inner child, a metaphor for a dream or ideal he once had, a christian image suddenly from a God/Christ perspective not being able to find him through his 'strange ideas', or literal are all not specifically important and can possible be all of the above. point is these 'strange ideas' have come between him and something he loves again. v3: bringing it back to the strange ideas. the times we live in are even stranger. they are strange, in a negative way, to a christian/spiritual worldview. they are strange, as in counterintuitive, from a philosophical, universally humanitarian and/or ecologically responsible viewpoint. they are, for whatever the reason strange to him much like the strange ideas he has/hears. he is confused by the world around him not corresponding to what he thinks and feels. he had it all but it was all rooted in the fleshly world, which cannot be counted on to comfort and protect us. he, much like the u.p., has lost his former glory. great song, great lament, great personification of a part of this nation. and nice, subtle nudge in the direction of hope.
Funny how a song with such few, short lines has such passionate repsonses.
so what's the top two?
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan boomed in the late 1800s and early 1900s with iron and copper mining and lumber, but when those resources were depleted the people went where the work was, like Wisconsin. I've heard that in the Keewanaw peninsula (the most northern part the "U.P.") there was around 88,000 people back then. Now there is something like 4,500. That's crazy. Today there isn't always a lot of work up there, unemployment is high, so is alcoholism.
this is pretty fucking incorrect, I go to school in the UP by choice and can tell you it is still full of resources especialy when you consider the population density. There are only 317,258 residents compared to say the 900K+ people that live in Detroit proper. There are still quarries, mills, tourism by way of the national and state parks system, four universities, one of the biggest bodies of fresh water in lake superior... Now do not get me wrong, there is all kinds of lower middle class scattered through-out the huge region- I just get more of a sense of seclusion and limited dreams/possibilities from the song. The continued riff is pretty epic though its kind of dreamy and vast, just the feeling you get upon crossing the mackinaw bridge. Fuck you nay-sayers... The UP is a great place to be it's vast, people here are very nice, and you can really create your own reality up here.
calm down man, he's only writing from what he's read. and stop using the f word as much as you do, it makes you come across really aggressive
He may sound aggressive, but at least he's right.
The Upper Peninsula is one of the worst places I have ever been.
People in Michigan love the U.P. though, and the uppers are proud to be there
This seems to me to be a story of lower-class citizens of Michigan, though it could probably describe those of any state. It describes a man who lives in a crappy trailer and doesn't have much, but he's still human; he drove all night to find his child, who was presumably lost somewhere.
The man is probably uneducated because he says his son has been revived in "strange ideas." This can mean one of two things, that his son was literally revived in a hospital that used some equipment or method that is foreign to the man (hence the strange ideas) or it could mean that his son was "revived" from a life of property by being educated. His education consisted of "ideas" that are "strange" to the man, since he is unfamiliar with them.
Finally, he admits his confusion with the "strange times" we live in. The world is complicated and sometimes we just don't know what's right. Are the "strange ideas" right? There's no way for him to know.