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.
Somehow we drifted off too far
Communicate like distant stars
Splintered voices down the phone
The sunlit dust, the smell of roses drifts, oh no
Someone waits behind the door
Hiroshima mon amour
Riding inter-city trains
Dressed in European grey
Riding out to echo beach
A million memories in the trees and sands, oh no
How can I ever let them go?
Hiroshima mon amour
Meet beneath the autumn lake
Where only echoes penetrate
Walk through Polaroids of the past
Futures fused like shattered glass, the suns so low
Turns our silhouettes to gold
Hiroshima mon amour
Communicate like distant stars
Splintered voices down the phone
The sunlit dust, the smell of roses drifts, oh no
Someone waits behind the door
Hiroshima mon amour
Riding inter-city trains
Dressed in European grey
Riding out to echo beach
A million memories in the trees and sands, oh no
How can I ever let them go?
Hiroshima mon amour
Meet beneath the autumn lake
Where only echoes penetrate
Walk through Polaroids of the past
Futures fused like shattered glass, the suns so low
Turns our silhouettes to gold
Hiroshima mon amour
Lyrics submitted by MrLongrove
Hiroshima Mon Amour Lyrics as written by Warren Reginald Cann Dennis Leigh
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
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The title is taken from a 1959 French film, directed by Alain Resnais and written by Marguerite Duras. The film concerns a Japanese man and a French woman (who are apparently lovers about to split up) who have a series of conversations, punctuated by WWII flashbacks, over a weekend. This abstract lyric is more a poetic reflection on the film's content (in particular the emphasis on memory, and the sense of a fading relationship) than a summary of the actual plot. One interesting diversion is the use of colour imagery ("...turns our silhouettes to gold..."), given that the film is in black and white.