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To think that I would die this time
Isolated in the room where the bed rises
Photographic ordinary people are everywhere
Extraordinary histories, ordinary histories, ordinary histories
I'll find sleep, I'll find peace
Or in death you'll sleep with me
To figure that it was my fault
Or so I've come to realize life is not about
Love with someone (ordinary people are everywhere)
Extraordinary people are, ordinary people are, ordinary people are
Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn
Illness is watching, waiting its turn
Did I go at it wrong?
Did I go intentionally to destroy me?
I'm suffering in noise I'm suffering in (touching ordinary body)
The burning from within the burning from with (ordinary hysteria)
I could not be at rest, I could not be at peace (extraordinary hysteria)
So do yourself a good, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Or do yourself a favor, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Illness likes to prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely
Wave goodbye, oh, I would rather be, but I would rather be fine
I want to be well, I want to be well
I want to be well, I want to be well
And I forgive you even
As you choke me that way
With the pill or demon
And the shrouded shalom
Under conversation
In tremendous weight of
A crowd of ages outside
Dressed for murder
I'm not fucking around
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not fucking around
And shall I kiss you even as you take me that way?
With the pill or demon as my body changes
Apparitions gone awry
They surround me, all sides
But from within I see an unholy change
I'm not fucking around
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not fucking around
Isolated in the room where the bed rises
Photographic ordinary people are everywhere
Extraordinary histories, ordinary histories, ordinary histories
I'll find sleep, I'll find peace
Or in death you'll sleep with me
To figure that it was my fault
Or so I've come to realize life is not about
Love with someone (ordinary people are everywhere)
Extraordinary people are, ordinary people are, ordinary people are
Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn
Illness is watching, waiting its turn
Did I go at it wrong?
Did I go intentionally to destroy me?
I'm suffering in noise I'm suffering in (touching ordinary body)
The burning from within the burning from with (ordinary hysteria)
I could not be at rest, I could not be at peace (extraordinary hysteria)
So do yourself a good, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Or do yourself a favor, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Illness likes to prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely
Wave goodbye, oh, I would rather be, but I would rather be fine
I want to be well, I want to be well
I want to be well, I want to be well
And I forgive you even
As you choke me that way
With the pill or demon
And the shrouded shalom
Under conversation
In tremendous weight of
A crowd of ages outside
Dressed for murder
I'm not fucking around
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not fucking around
And shall I kiss you even as you take me that way?
With the pill or demon as my body changes
Apparitions gone awry
They surround me, all sides
But from within I see an unholy change
I'm not fucking around
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not fucking around
Lyrics submitted by strykerchick
Track duration: 06:29
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*don't hear unholy change
"I've come to realize life is not love with someone" because "ordinary people are everywhere." He could fall in love with anyone; it doesn't matter who; life isn't about obsessions with one person; it's about following your interests. all that really matters is loving yourself no matter where you are, who you are with. and as long as he's doing what he wants, nothing can touch him, or hurt him, not even death.
The last part "apparitions gone awry, they surround me, all sides...the only change is: I'm not fuckin around..." The only way to be well is it do what you want; not to depend on anyone, or any obsessions, not even jesus. thats my 2 cents.
good song
I just want to know why he, as a Christian, chose to curse in this song. It's interesting and perplexing to me.
Anyway, it seems pretty obvious to me that he chose that word because he knew how shocked people would be. Maybe you know someone who's really well mannered and polite, and then one day he's pushed to his limits and explodes, and everyone's like, "...shit, man." Maybe it's like that. Maybe he's at his limit; he really wants people to see how serious he is.
Then I heard this song. Wow. "I'm not fucking around"? Wow. So passionate and beautiful. It's so raw. I want to listen to it over and over again. And I have to say, when I first heard it, I was like, "...did Sufjan just drop an f bomb?" and he did, and I actually wasn't upset!
A lot of people think that he's lost himself and he sounds different, but so far, this sounds just like him to me. Like I said before, it reminds me a lot of "A Sun Came," and that was his first album. I am overjoyed that this album still sounds like Sufjan. Very happy. I love this man.
The "So do yourself a good, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes or do yourself a favor, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes" part makes me think that it's important to take care of yourself so you have a better chance of staying healthy and avoiding illness. Not to say that people deserve or ask for illness by any means, but there is something to be said about taking care of yourself to maintain good health. I also believe that Sufjan is blaming himself for maybe not taking good enough care of himself, even though he might have.
I do not understand this part: "And shall I kiss you even as you take me that way?" Any interpretations?
I think Sufjan's world is upside-down from what the ordinary world considers "reality". He realizes this and can't give away too much without being labeled "insane", so he keeps people guessing with his lyrics just enough to mask his reality (which is a much "truer" reality).
You must separate his "Christianity" to some extent from his actual religious upbringing to investigate this and to understand what he is likely suffering from as a result of this. His reality is not like "normal Christians" but of an "occultist-turned-Christian". I've written about this under "Vesuvius", but you can take pretty much any song, like John Wayne Gacy, and figure out what he's talking about it if you understand this perspective.
People that have left the occult often suffer from what is labeled as "schizophrenia" and "multiple personality" disorders, but its very much related to demon possession. Google "Cisco Wheeler", "ritual abuse", "Svali speaks", etc for some better perspective on what is going on outside of the comfort of what we think is "normal".
I believe Sufjan understands the spiritual world far more than "normal Christians" (myself included), because he has experienced and participated in "true" evil, which is why he is also racked with guilt, and no doubt suffering or recalls suffering at the hands of actual demons.
I wont try too hard to interpret this song as its not a favorite of mine, but I'll put the first things that come to mind from this perspective:
To think that I would die this time
Isolated in the room where the bed rises
Photographic ordinary people are everywhere
Extraordinary histories, ordinary histories, ordinary histories
If Sufjan is/was illuminati, then this stanza is pretty straightforward. The very young are sadistically (sexually through sodomy, shock, isolation/depravation and other forms) abused and tortured while adults sometimes stand around laughing to create a feeling of loneliness and to push the child to seek help from a demon, thus bringing on demon possession and fracturing their minds into multiple personalities & dissociation.
They are taught that this is all "normal" and that people act one way in the day, but that the real "normal" is at night, when all this sadistic stuff occurs. On many occasions, they will bring the child to a state of death and resuscitate them. One of the things they teach is photographic memory, where you will be required to remember everything or be tortured, until you can quickly do so.
To figure that it was my fault
Or so I've come to realize life is not about
Love with someone (ordinary people are everywhere)
Extraordinary people are, ordinary people are, ordinary people are
These children are forced to commit heinous acts (under severe penalty of resistance) and then blamed for it. They become trapped in their own minds and unable to escape once they are "programmed". The entire family will also suffer from these same symptoms as they are all going through the same things throughout many generations.
Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn
Illness is watching, waiting its turn
This is part of the sadistic training. They will constantly set you up for failure & then abuse you until you are completely under their mind control. This happens their entire lifetimes and never ends.
Did I go at it wrong?
Did I go intentionally to destroy me?
I'm suffering in noise I'm suffering in (touching ordinary body)
The burning from within the burning from with (ordinary hysteria)
I could not be at rest, I could not be at peace (extraordinary hysteria)
So do yourself a good, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Or do yourself a favor, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes
Kind of straightforward here. The only thing that stands out is that I'm "intentionally destroying me". Illuminati program you to kill yourself (if you know someone with MPD/DID, you might understand how this works), rather than attempt to escape. Ordinary people have the luxury of dying from ordinary causes.
Illness likes to prey upon the lonely, prey upon the lonely
Wave goodbye, oh, I would rather be, but I would rather be fine
I want to be well, I want to be well
I want to be well, I want to be well
Again, pretty clear. This demon-possession occurs because its your last refuge and you are completely along and vulnerable. He is now rejecting this relationship and wants to get well.
And I forgive you even
As you choke me that way
With the pill or demon
These children are made to feel love for their trainers, who are usually their parents. Also, the trauma and training encourages homosexual relations, but this is not the song to discuss that issue. Pills and demons are the biggest tools of these trainers, along with sodomy. They are highly sophisticated in their use of drugs to bring about the proper "programming".
And the shrouded shalom
Under conversation
In tremendous weight of
A crowd of ages outside
Dressed for murder
These secret societies have secret greetings (shrouded "shalom") that mask a much darker reality. The crowd of ages refers to this being the cult that goes to the beginning of recorded history: the "mysteries of Babylon" spoken of in Revelation. Sacrificial murder is a core part of their worship... Baal, druids/stonehenge, aztecs, and today's Illuminati.
Apparitions gone awry
They surround me, all sides
But from within I see an unholy change
Visions from demons, demon possession, etc. His body is now filled with this evil.
I could do without the swearing, but its probably not Christians he is trying to reach. It's an unfortunate distraction, and something he could have expressed in other ways.
These secrets were foretold in Revelation. Search the Bible (and Biblical interpretations) for the truth and take a closer look at the evil present in today's world. Challenge your own thinking.
Not ready to accept a life diminished to that difference, you feel responsible. What's wrong is inside you but even responsibility no longer matters. God/nature, who brought you into existence, has left you suffering and weak and the world they created for you has turned on you. Without human understanding and without material hope, it's between you and a reality apparently bent on your destruction, on ridding itself of you--God/nature's reality, how could either let it happen? With diminished health and diminished spirit, having lived wrongly or rightly, you've been abandoned by the world and its creator to the mercy of illness (spiritual or physical). And with whatever strength and power left within you, you're determined you will survive.
The song goes from expressing isolation, guilt and distance from normal living to self-examination, suffering and fear and resolving in reconciliation with fate in a cruel world and finally in unprincipled and desperate determination to overcome. I actually thought the general attitude of the song reminded me of Laissez Faire by Loney Dear -- in spirit; his is obviously not so elaborately expressed.
Sufjan repeating "I'm not fucking around" with "I want to be well," is a complete mindf*ck for me. After over 10 years of being completely spiritually lost, hearing "I want to be well" and coupling that with the frustration of "Not fucking around" really hits home. How do you escape a problem you are no longer able to comprehend or even begin to understand?
I think this is the same for almost any time in life where reality of loss sets in.
When you get really ill for an extended period of time you begin to see this duality in everything. As kperkins says 'sick' and 'well' become the two equally valid states of being. 'illness', in times of health, is seen as this kind of faraway place that barely registers when you're told about it. But it's a different world: one in which those thousands of little imperceptible beauties in life are gone - as alien to you as illness was when you were well. Your world is then dominated by stats, prognoses, survival chances, raised risks of such-and-such. I remember during my treatment I found a youtube video of some researcher claiming my type of chemotherapy, while effective at removing the cancer itself, inevitably killed the patient a few years down the line anyway from a variety of illnesses. He said it so blase - it was terrifying. I spiralled down into anxiety and depression completely at that point.
"Ordinary people are everywhere"
So you try to make it better, somehow. You have to remember that yes, there is such a thing as a healthy, happy life. You stop believing in that. One thing about the suffering was that I began to project suffering on everything. A funny little expample is that the boredom of my cats looking at walls all day became to me the intense, anxious boredom chemo brain can induce. So you tell yourself "ordinary people are everywhere", extraordinary people even. Sufjan here tries to remember all the "Extraordinary histories" that he was so occupied with in his earlier works, the fascination he used to feel for them. But then, that other voice comes in (played so beautifully in the song as an actual, different voice cutting in) "Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn, illness is watching, waiting its turn". You think, oh my god, all those people - they're deceived. This is going to happen to them too, and it's going to be as awful for them as it is for me.
So what's the only conclusion you can come to from that? Of course: "Do yourself a a death from ordinary causes". I began to have fantasies about the way you could die without much suffering - ways I'd like to go out myself. Some kind of car crash, a sniper bullet to the head perhaps. Dark places, I went to.
Then all that breaks down and it's just "I want to be well", the reasoning and frustration and mania becomes a simple plea. Again and again and again - it's all you can hang on to. People go on about "coping strategies", therapy, "maybe watching dvds will make him feel better". Everyone thinks something will work, because what else do you say? But NOTHING works. All you can think is, I want to be well - and believe that you will be again, one day. This is what it all boils down to - I want to be well. Please please please someone make me well again.
As for the rest of the lines I haven't talked about, yeah, I think the auto-immune disease idea kperkins talks about above is probably accurate. There is something vividly physiological about his description of his symptoms, or at least the treatment for his symptoms.
Btw, hope the rant above hasn't depressed anyone too much. It can be so awful, but I'm better and life is a brighter, more beautiful place for it. I'm in a place my ill self couldn't have imagined, which is the real comfort: as bad as it feels, you simply can't imagine how things might change for you (13:00 onwards of Impossible Soul comes to mind). This song takes me briefly back to that place, and it's wonderful to just have something that bears witness to what happened and reminds me of how amazing it is just to be well.