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Hey, man, please don't make a sound
Take a look around
Can't you see what's right in front of you?
Have a little taste
No more time to waste
You don't wanna get left behind 'cause it's all coming down right now
How hard is it to see?
Put your faith in me
'Cause you wouldn't want to be
Praying to the wrong piece of wood
You should get where you belong
Everything you know is wrong
Come on, sing along, everybody now
(God given)
[Chorus:]
And He gives us sight
And we see the light
And it burns so bright
Now we know we're right
It is kingdom come
And Thy will be done
We have just begun
We're the chosen ones
(I would never tell you anything that wasn't absolutely true that hadn't come right from
His mouth that He wants me to tell you)
Wait
Step into the light
How can this be right?
I'm afraid we're going to ask you to leave
Guess you cannot win
With the color of your skin
You won't be getting in to the Promised Land
This is just another case
You people still don't know your place
Step aside, out the way, wipe that look off your face
'Cause we are the divine
Separated from the swine
Come on, sing along, everybody now
(God given)
[Chorus x 2]
(I would never tell you anything that wasn't absolutely true that hadn't come right from
His mouth that He wants me to tell you)
(God given)
Take a look around
Can't you see what's right in front of you?
Have a little taste
No more time to waste
You don't wanna get left behind 'cause it's all coming down right now
How hard is it to see?
Put your faith in me
'Cause you wouldn't want to be
Praying to the wrong piece of wood
You should get where you belong
Everything you know is wrong
Come on, sing along, everybody now
(God given)
[Chorus:]
And He gives us sight
And we see the light
And it burns so bright
Now we know we're right
It is kingdom come
And Thy will be done
We have just begun
We're the chosen ones
(I would never tell you anything that wasn't absolutely true that hadn't come right from
His mouth that He wants me to tell you)
Wait
Step into the light
How can this be right?
I'm afraid we're going to ask you to leave
Guess you cannot win
With the color of your skin
You won't be getting in to the Promised Land
This is just another case
You people still don't know your place
Step aside, out the way, wipe that look off your face
'Cause we are the divine
Separated from the swine
Come on, sing along, everybody now
(God given)
[Chorus x 2]
(I would never tell you anything that wasn't absolutely true that hadn't come right from
His mouth that He wants me to tell you)
(God given)
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I don't think the song has much to do with christianity. Anyone who knows anything about the setting of Year Zero knows that there is no longer any seperation of church and state. Instead Church and State now are the same. So in reality, this song could be about the new government that was established. The religious government.
I don't believe it is fair what some of your are saying. Someone said that "Christians make it hard for me...", and how "Christians recurit..." People always say that we Christians are judgmental and unaccepting towards others.. Well, that's being judgmental right there. When you say that about a Christian, you're being a big hypocrite. And it makes you look stupid. Not all Christians try to shove religion down your throat, and not all of them are the stereotypes that you all seem to believe. I am a Christian myself, and I am no judgmental, and I accept a lot of people. Even if I don't agree with what they believe in or what they do, I don't rant about it, because it's not my life. But I really get angry when I see people talking about us Christians like this--accusing us of discriminate against other people. You need to know that not all Christians are like that. Some are REAL Christians who are loving and try to be like Jesus as much as they can. The ones who are rude and critisize other relgions, people, etc, are not doing their best to glorify God.
I am sure I will get a lot of nasty comments from some people, but I don't really mind. Not very many people know the term 'civilized'. Anyway, I actually like the beat of this song, personally. Very good tempo.
Got it?
Okay, now listen to the beat of Zero-Sum
SAME THING, different tempo.
This man is a genius
I do not feel like Reznor has ever been politically active, though in these times I would call it hypocritical not to be. Also, I have never really tried to look at previous albums like the Downward Spiral in that manner. Nevertheless, I take most of his work before this project as having a very different undertone than that of social aggression. With Year Zero I can be proven wrong in the You Tube statement directly from the artist in which he states that the album trends along the same lines that most of you guys have touched on here. But Reznor is a symbol of misdirection, an artist of it. When he does make public statements, which I whole-heatedly believe in refraining from as much as possible when you are the artistic figure head of an underground movement, they are mostly direct and concise to his fan base that support and share his vision. But where the fuck is the beauty in that? Reznor’s actions since his release from under the supervision of his “captive” record company have been nothing less than revolutionary in the music world. I can see a cog starting to turn in that back of the business. Putting out musical, video, and artistic works that he has accumulated while under restriction. What’s more is that he holds no rights on the works at all, in fact he condones use of these works in your own. His focus seems to be on creating a communal mob that work together to create, share, re-share, and benefit from their art. But I make all these assumptions under this pre-text: Year Zero has a mythology about it that extends beyond the confines of contemporary music, and I want to know what that mythology is. I have to know.
With all this in mind I can’t see Year Zero as being anything more than a clever disguise for a greater underlying message. I don’t hear a George Bush when I listen to Capital G. I hear the humor of greed. I don’t hear an American Military sniper when I listen to Me, I’m not. I hear the sorrow of a losing battle between a man and his values. And I don’t hear a history of a Christian plague on American society when I listen to God Given. I hear the comedy of how man struggles to ground himself to a spinning rock by blindly following a doomed figure head.
In God Given, Reznor assumes the persona of a figure head of some organized mass (I haven’t found any proof of Christianity, or even that it is of the size more than a few impressionable people), at the time of a near apocalyptic event. In fact, take every song in this album as told from the perspective of a singular person in this event, except for in this Twilight and Zero-Sum. For these two songs I think Reznor is acting as himself for the coming of the event and the moments after. Next, and very importantly, do not give this album a time frame, there is no greater boundary than limiting this “conceptual work” by giving it an environment and time-line. I think that the major message will be missed by doing so.
I absolutely loath the person who is singing God Given. I compare he/she to the women in the movie that causes the plight of a christianic cult, doomed, and in limbo, because of their blind faith in her heretical actions. You know, the one the cop, the little girl, and her mother… But that is not the point of the song. The song is only looking at this catastrophic world event from the religious fanatic’s point of view. It Is your job to take from it what you will. When I listen to the song I see an old woman fierce with rage at the people surrounding the soap box she is on. She blames the coming apocalypse on the crowd she gathers in the airport terminal. As people panic and run here or there to find loved ones, pray, or screw; she madly spits fire of the tombstone at everyone. As I walk passed the people she is televangelistically blessing, I smile at the hypocrisy of the moment and watch out through the terminal doors as the light begins to grow off in the horizon. I am not god given and I am thankful of that.
Some people think its cool to try to pretend that all christians are hypocrites. Some are, some are not. This song is about the false churches that pop up after the real rapture occurs when mankind leasts except it. (the_warning)