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.
The ghosts of the marathon dancers
In an abandoned dancehall
Go whirling around in the eddies of dust
When the wind comes in through a chink in the wall
All the music and the dancers are gone
But the dance goes on
They all danced till some long-ago dawn
But the dance goes on
In the cellars of dead Rockefellers
Hallways and subways and vaults
Go twisting and turning for mile after mile
In a glorious Gilded Age waltz
All the music and the dancers are gone
But the dance goes on
They all danced till some long-ago dawn
But the dance goes on
And I wrote the above in this ghost town
For a movie that wasn't to be
An adaptation of a French musical
Produced by Ted Hope, directed by Ang Lee
All the rights and the money are gone
But the song goes on
Like most movies, it'll never be done
But the song goes on
In an abandoned dancehall
Go whirling around in the eddies of dust
When the wind comes in through a chink in the wall
All the music and the dancers are gone
But the dance goes on
They all danced till some long-ago dawn
But the dance goes on
In the cellars of dead Rockefellers
Hallways and subways and vaults
Go twisting and turning for mile after mile
In a glorious Gilded Age waltz
All the music and the dancers are gone
But the dance goes on
They all danced till some long-ago dawn
But the dance goes on
And I wrote the above in this ghost town
For a movie that wasn't to be
An adaptation of a French musical
Produced by Ted Hope, directed by Ang Lee
All the rights and the money are gone
But the song goes on
Like most movies, it'll never be done
But the song goes on
Lyrics submitted by Mellow_Harsher
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Not sure how intentional this was, but this song comes across as a very well-executed homage to the late Leonard Cohen- lyrically, compositionally, vocally, all of it. It taps into Cohen's specific brand of melancholia and does so very respectfully, which is what makes it seem more "homage" than anything approaching a rip-off.