Dark City

Serpent Hollow = A cave in the game Oblivion

which leads me to believe that the song is about Oblivion, clever, eh? :)

I'd think so too, but looking up some Oblivion sites I don't see any references to a train yard or a belvedere. And the map at guides.gamepressure.com/theelderscrolls4oblivion/guide.asp doesn't show any extant cities near Serpent Hollow (although it does show some elven ruins).

Also, Googling for shinedust Oblivion or shinedust Elder Scrolls doesn't turn up anything relevant.

I can feel the fire deep inside, it's burning brighter With but a raised fist and my pride, I sway to the beat of our decay, the horsemen on their way.

In this i see him talking about the decay of the world, and from the lines before it he is enjoying it. and i am sure everyone knows what the four horsemen are. If not: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse

And in this mob a crescent line to hide behind Here in and of the dark, our city, its streets and walls. Here we live, we are, inside our homes and malls.

The human race constructs massive cities in our "greatness" and we admire the fact we are so "great".

I walk across the dead train yard, remembering who we are. I look inside and in my heart, we're never far apart.

A dead train yard i think is metaphorical. for what i am unsure :S Could be seeing our destruction in a literal term though and how we just use until its all gone and then drop it and move on from what we were and the dead, even though we are not far apart..

I can see the mountain over me, the Serpent Hollow The silent fortress underneath, I sway to the beat of our decay, the light of other days. And fireside the black island, the toxic sand Dancing city lights glowing against the sky. Snowing, shimmering, shinedust in our eyes.

explaining another city and how it pollutes.

I walk across the dead train yard, remembering who we are. I look inside and in my heart, we're never far apart.

And in the yellow belvedere I carve my name without fear. A witness to the birth of me, This garden of concrete.

"yellow belvedere" seems to be a phonebook lol so i guess carving his name is having a registered place in the book..garden of concrete is another reference to a city and it really is a garden of concrete if you think about it.

I walk across the dead train yard, remembering who we are. I look inside and in my heart, we're never far apart.

And in the yellow belvedere I carve my name without fear. A witness to the birth of me This garden of concrete.

Thats my two cents, doesn't really tie anything together, although give something to think of for others to put down ideas.

from what I could figure out, a Belvedere is also a model of car.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Belvedere

this makes sense, considering the post-apocalyptic feel of the song, and the character being a supposed survivor. what pushes the survivor angle more is the switch from talking about the entire race, to seemingly talking about one person (maybe a significant other killed or lost in whatever event took place?). also, the switching from talking about being in a mob or some kind of large-scale riot to suddenly being alone reinforces it even more.

all in all, the song's meaning is kind of clear cut but at the same time completely muddled, especially when you consider the band's penchant for making references to games (i.e. the Serpent Hollow and Oblivion thing), movies (which apparently the title of the song is a reference to), and anime.

For what it's worth, in Final Fantasy 7, Cloud (the main character) has trouble finding himself, loss of memory and such. There's also a part in a train yard where all the trains are wrecked. Perhaps it's a reference to this part of the game where he's trying to find himself.