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.
Do you know the reason people dive when they want to
Take a ride through the world holding nothing at all?
Looking high looking low everything is grim until you
Bust your little bubble falling gently down below
Well I don't know I've been told
Everything is good until it's bad
Then you know that you've been lost or you're found
Well I don't know I've been told everything
Is good until it's bad then you know that
You've been lost or you're found
Why? I don't know I'm feeling nothing
Spacing through time just like I know
I should if all I've got is my HEAD
A rollin', think where I'd be and
Where I once stood
Kick to another side where everybody glides
Through destruction leaving no place to hide
Save the day save the wave make you surely
Shock them, thanking people that we should've
Knocked down on the ground
I'm all in pieces I'm going out of my head
I can't figure it out so I'll stand here
I don't know if I'm alive or DEAD!
Crazy people walking by putting fingers in my eye
Thinking that the world is fun on a stick
Well, off they go, licking slow looking quick to find
That the world that they licked was the world they left behind
Take a ride through the world holding nothing at all?
Looking high looking low everything is grim until you
Bust your little bubble falling gently down below
Well I don't know I've been told
Everything is good until it's bad
Then you know that you've been lost or you're found
Well I don't know I've been told everything
Is good until it's bad then you know that
You've been lost or you're found
Why? I don't know I'm feeling nothing
Spacing through time just like I know
I should if all I've got is my HEAD
A rollin', think where I'd be and
Where I once stood
Kick to another side where everybody glides
Through destruction leaving no place to hide
Save the day save the wave make you surely
Shock them, thanking people that we should've
Knocked down on the ground
I'm all in pieces I'm going out of my head
I can't figure it out so I'll stand here
I don't know if I'm alive or DEAD!
Crazy people walking by putting fingers in my eye
Thinking that the world is fun on a stick
Well, off they go, licking slow looking quick to find
That the world that they licked was the world they left behind
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Basically, this is a song about being in a mosh pit. The chaos of 90's mosh pits could make people easily get lost in things. A side note: "Save the wave" was a reference to a local Dallas club that would have new wave nights, where they played new wave music. They called the program "Save the Wave."