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.
Trouble falls in my home
Troubled man, troubled stone
Turn a mountain of lies
Turn a card for my life
Man of Steel, Man of Heart
Tame our ways, if we start
To devise something more
Something halfways
Only a steel man came to recover
If he had run from gold, carry over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
I took a bus to the lake
Saw the monument face
Yellow tides, golden eyes
Red and white, red and wise
Raise the flag, summer home
Parted hair, part unknown
If I knew what I read
I'll send it half ways
Only a real man can be a lover
If he had hands to lend us all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
Took my bags, Illinois
Dreamt the lake took my boy
Man of Steel, Man of Heart
Turn your ear to my part
There are things you have said
Raise the boat, and raise the dead
If you take us away
Still can we say:
Only a steel man can be a lover
If he had hands to tremble all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
Troubled man, troubled stone
Turn a mountain of lies
Turn a card for my life
Man of Steel, Man of Heart
Tame our ways, if we start
To devise something more
Something halfways
Only a steel man came to recover
If he had run from gold, carry over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
I took a bus to the lake
Saw the monument face
Yellow tides, golden eyes
Red and white, red and wise
Raise the flag, summer home
Parted hair, part unknown
If I knew what I read
I'll send it half ways
Only a real man can be a lover
If he had hands to lend us all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
Took my bags, Illinois
Dreamt the lake took my boy
Man of Steel, Man of Heart
Turn your ear to my part
There are things you have said
Raise the boat, and raise the dead
If you take us away
Still can we say:
Only a steel man can be a lover
If he had hands to tremble all over
We celebrate our sense of each other
We have a lot to give one another
Lyrics submitted by drinkmilk
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I made a comment over 10 years ago that it might just not happen to be a song about god, and I was wrong.