When I was just a little boy
I threw away all of my action toys
While I became obsessed with Operation

With hearts and minds and certain glands
You gotta learn to keep a steady hand
And thus began my morbid fascination

Tore the spines from out of all of these self-help books
Made myself a gun that not only shoots but looks
So real
Yeah it shoots through steel
With rays of darkmatter
Rays of darkmatter

Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in the head or between your sides
And who would be the one who will decide
Its true location

And does the thought of all this red and black
Thought of tongues that takes you back
Fill you with the nausea of elation

The noose is loosed around our necks made of DNA
And every day it's growing tighter, no matter what they do or say
Well, you can shoot right through with rays of darkmatter
Just before they kick out
They kick out the ladder
With rays of dark matter

Do you wonder where the self resides
Is it in the head or between your sides
And who would be the one who will decide
Its true location



Lyrics submitted by bobwronski

Track duration: 05:42


Darkmatter song meanings
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26 Comments

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  • 0
    Song Meaning:Until very recently, certain parts of the human genome were a mystery - scientists could not determine the purpose of the material, which was labeled "junk DNA", or "dark matter". This year (Sept. 2012) findings were published in "Nature" to the effect that the "dark matter" contains millions of gene switches that determine how a cell behaves, and when. So if you are carrying a hereditary disease, the countdown clock for its onset is encoded somewhere in those switches. It's a huge breakthrough in genetic research. It seems to fit with the idea of a noose of DNA growing tighter but you can shoot right through it with "rays of dark matter". I don't know if that's what he's talking about or not but if so, it's prophetic - the song was written years before this discovery was published. He doesn't moonlight as some kind of mad scientist, does he?
    nytimes.com/2012/09/06/science/…
    Flag abirataon January 31, 2013   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I'm with the guy with the exploding cat (on this). Great song. The lyrics are deep. Not familiar with the artist, but apparently I need to be...
    Flag ILUVUon December 21, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:I think that contrary to popular belief on this website, the act of shooting through the noose of dna with rays of darkmatter does not suggest escaping death, but rather, the opposite. I think it shows that death is inevitable. The noose of dna around our necks alludes to the natural life cycle that is encoded in human genes ending in death. By saying that you can shoot through this noose with rays of darkmatter says that that it is impossible to esacape death because darkmatter is representative of the unknown, the hypothetical, and the undetectable.
    Flag hejames12on August 03, 2010   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:This song has sort of this awesome rebellious theme to it, which I love. Why do I say that? First, it implies that this kid's parents thought he was going nuts with this whole Operation thing, and bought a truckload of self-help books for him... which he makes into a gun. Um. Then in the 6th paragraph, it suggests escaping your own death and running away with this gun that you made. Everyone else is sane and comfortable, but you are different and you rip through the town escaping your own medieval-style death-by-hanging using a gun that has a very modern concept embedded (darkmatter, that is) in it.

    The speaker is fighting for his own freedom, and yet, in his escape, he wonders if that's his "self" telling him that he needs to do this, or plain instinct -- Do you wonder where the self resides? Is it in the head or between your sides? because his head is telling him to get the heck out of there and he wants to know if that's the voice of his "self"... not to be too repetitive.

    But anyway, I might be reading WAAAY too much into this... or maybe not... jus' my opinion.
    Flag myexplodingcaton June 07, 2010   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:I think this song is about love. Or at least to me. Love as a human experience...the morbid fascination being the sensual (of the senses)experience of love. And the gun that not only shoots but looks real, part of the illusion of space and time and temporal perception of something (love) that feels non-temporal and the gun being made out of tore self help spines i relate to just how conceptualized love has becomed, and/or also bones to me represent the left carcass of life, and the spine a crucial connector for the nervous system and in certain religious beliefs where the main life vitality runs through, i relate to the possibility of as humans create a "gun" a sort of vessel for this dark matter with a certain awareness and curiosity, that whether thoroughly explained in a book or naked to the bone is still serves it purpose...So maybe i am reading way to much into this but this is what came to me mind,...dark matter being love, no matter how much the discussion of the mind vs the instinct or the spirit or science, but maybe a harmony or co-existence of them all...still being what it is,facing the finite reality embedded in our dna with the dark matter that escapes definitions of beginnings and ends and hierarchies (the ladders)...
    Anywho, this song is so very beautiful and for some reason it gives me peace, perhaps because of the things it makes me think of, leaving me with the conclusion that I don't need to question love, or stop questioning it...that it is just a very welcoming dark mystery...
    Flag Moonitaon January 23, 2010   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:"Thought of tongues that taste you back"
    never have i ever though of kissing in this context.
    Flag MaggieCareyon October 29, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"The noose is loosed around our necks made of DNA"

    Is the neck made of DNA or the noose or both.

    Read like this: "The noose is loosed around our necks made of DNA" says to me that our necks are made out of DNA.

    What if it was like this: "The noose is loosed around our necks, made of DNA" The DNA could then refer to the noose. That's an interesting concept to me. Like the creator or whomever is choking us with our own DNA. Also, DNA is in chains/ropes/strands which fits right into the allusion of a noose. Just a thought.
    Flag jankouton July 20, 2009   Link
  • +1
    General Comment:I already posted this on the Sweetbreads page, but no one seems to look there anymore (which is sad because it's an amazing song).
    "At the concert in Boston that I went to, he was describing where this song came from. He said he had a dream of flipping through a French cookbook, and then he came upon a page entitled 'Sweetbreads', and in parenthesis it said 'Thoughts'. Then he goes on to say how it might be possible to eat the brain to find out what something is about.
    It's a lovely song and the explanation he gave was really cute - I have the video of him talking about it if anybody wants to watch it."
    Flag Jykoneon June 23, 2009   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:Dark matter is what accounts for most of the mass in the universe. Its presence is detected by observing gravitational pull on visible matter.

    If you haven't read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (the first book being "The Golden Compass"), they will give you an interesting perspective on this song; the 2nd and 3rd books delve deeply into the divide between religion and science. What one character identifies as what souls are made of, a physicist identifies as dark matter.

    "Do you wonder where the self resides?"
    Flag akayon July 29, 2008   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:this song is extremely underrated! i think it's probably the best of Armchairs! ugh! >:[

    well, i think it's absoultely motherfuckingamazig!
    Flag grrsawnon June 20, 2008   Link

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