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.
I dreamed you were a cosmonaut
Of the space between our chairs
And I was a cartographer
Of the tangles in your hair
I sang the song that silence brings
It's the one that everybody knows, everybody knows
The song that silence sings
And this, this is how it goes
These looms that weave apocrypha
They're hanging from a strand
This dark and empty rooms were full
Of incandescent hands
Awkward pause, the fatal flaw
Time, it's a crooked bow
Time is a crooked bow
Time you need to learn to love
The ebb just like the flow
Grab hold of your bootstraps and pull like hell
Until gravity feels sorry for you and lets you go
As if you lack the proper chemicals to know, oh
The way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low
Time, time it's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow, oh, ooh
Fifty-five and three-eighths years later
At the bottom of this gigantic crater
An armchair calls to you
Yeah, this armchair calls to you
And it says that someday we'll get back at them all
With epoxy and a pair of pliers
As ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
Through the ragweed and barbed wire, oh
You didn't write, you didn't call
It didn't cross your mind at all, hey
Through the waves, the waves of hay and straw
You couldn't feel a thing at all
Fifty-five and three-eighths, time
Fifty-five and three-eighths time, time
Of the space between our chairs
And I was a cartographer
Of the tangles in your hair
I sang the song that silence brings
It's the one that everybody knows, everybody knows
The song that silence sings
And this, this is how it goes
These looms that weave apocrypha
They're hanging from a strand
This dark and empty rooms were full
Of incandescent hands
Awkward pause, the fatal flaw
Time, it's a crooked bow
Time is a crooked bow
Time you need to learn to love
The ebb just like the flow
Grab hold of your bootstraps and pull like hell
Until gravity feels sorry for you and lets you go
As if you lack the proper chemicals to know, oh
The way it felt the last time you let yourself fall this low
Time, time it's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow
Time's a crooked bow, oh, ooh
Fifty-five and three-eighths years later
At the bottom of this gigantic crater
An armchair calls to you
Yeah, this armchair calls to you
And it says that someday we'll get back at them all
With epoxy and a pair of pliers
As ancient sea slugs begin to crawl
Through the ragweed and barbed wire, oh
You didn't write, you didn't call
It didn't cross your mind at all, hey
Through the waves, the waves of hay and straw
You couldn't feel a thing at all
Fifty-five and three-eighths, time
Fifty-five and three-eighths time, time
Lyrics submitted by bobwronski
Armchairs Lyrics as written by Andrew Wegman Bird
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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I don't know where his dad is but I can tell you where my mind goes
This is one of my favorites and one of the reasons I am just completely in love with this artist
It starts out in a vague romantic vein but ends up talking about a much older relationship, an absent father. Not completely absent, but someone who shows up just for the parties. It's a censure and longing for something the narrator doesn't even know how to describe - so the stories of mom and dad are just apocryphal, rather than factual.
The line about bootstraps just makes my heart break and soar at the same time, and it's not specific to anything else but my very own broken heart - Andrew, you can work a lyric, can't you?
And there's so much wit in the lines about fixing it all with epoxy and pliers - in god knows how much time we'll get around to it eventually when the sea slugs well, you know
The 55 3/8 might refer to someone's age and how tall you ought to be by then
I don't freaking know. But I love this artist so much