Lyrics for Epiphany as interpreted by Alucard

Epiphany Lyrics
A new age of reason
Brain treason to trick the mind
What good is searching
if nothing's there to find
We arrive at this place
of no return my brothers
Only to discover that our minds have led us away so far from the painful truth
of who we are

What's right is wrong
what's come has gone
what's clear and pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie
all that's benign corrupts in time
The fallacy
of Epiphany

Come forth bear witness
see the profit from your loss
Beg for forgiveness
only after you tally the cost
We arrive at this place
of no return my sisters
Only to discover that our values ran us aground on the shoal in the sea of what
we could be

What's right is wrong
what's come has gone
what's clear and pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie
all that's benign corrupts in time
The fallacy
of Epiphany

If it's real for me do I have to prove it to you
Why do revelations fade to cold blue untruths
It's oh so relative
Subservient in total to one's perspective

What's right is wrong
what's come has gone
what's clear and pure is not so sure
It came to me
All promises become a lie
all that's benign corrupts in time
The fallacy
of Epiphany

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pinkfade
06-26-2009

Rated 0 
"see the profit from your loss"..

great double meaning... your prophet... you will realize is the profit... the one who profits from your loss.. thats mainly directed at religion..

realization that your whole outlook on life up until now has been false... and youv been led astray..
the fallacy...

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J3R3M7
12-13-2008

Rated 0 
The human mind is vulnerable to hallucinations, anyone who has studied the human brain can tell you this. These hallucinations can easily be misinterpreted to be religious experiences. Once we've had this "experience" we think of it as an epiphany. We think we are more enlightened by it, but it's basically just a psychological way for anyone who wants to believe in a religion to have justification for their beliefs that hold no value. Many of the people who say they've seen God or that God has talked to them, actually are fooled by this false hallucination and full heartedly believe that what happened to them can not be explained. A Christian might tell you that he spoke to Jesus, a Muslim might tell you that he spoke to Allah, etc. "it's all so relative."

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totallytrue
10-24-2008

Rated 0 
This is a good song, I like it.

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david311freak
07-16-2008

Rated 0 
i think its about how evreyone take thing in there own way

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dsimp676
03-26-2008

Rated 0 
I'd say that the lyric "all thats benign corrupts in time" has alot of significance. An epiphany is of no harm, its benign. Whether a politcal, social or religious idea initially its harmless. However after it gains ground and spreads from person it "corrupts in time"

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Blackbird_1565
01-17-2008

Rated 0 
I just realized something today: this song makes a lot of sense if you know Richard Dawkins' stance on revelations. He considers them to be one of the bad reasons for believing in something, and also says that it is a bad reason for believing in it due to a lack of evidence, the basic point of the song. Given Graffin's scientific background, I'm not really surprised that he either knows about it, or agrees with it. It's also interesting to note that there is some social commentary also to coincide with the notions on belief. I don't know if this makes much sense, but that's what I'm getting from it.

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Uref
01-07-2006

Rated 0 
Here is what I think: this song is about how some revelation, epiphany, comes to a person. This person then shares this with others, wether through a religious book, a philosophy, a manifesto, whatever. As the idea 'travels' from person to person and, especially, down the river of time, it becomes distorted, abused and fades.

Jesus' condemnation of dogmatism & advocacy of tolerance becomes a dogmatic religion

Marx' essentially economic system becomes a totaliarian political system. (Animal Farm, BTW, describes the process in this song wonderfully)

Nietzsche's Ubermensch becomes Nazi Ubermensch (In a slightly different context, Nazis went out of their way to corrupt things as opposed to gradual corruption over a long period)

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SwedishFish
12-27-2004

Rated 0 
PS a key lyric is "Only to discover that our minds have led us away so far from the painful truth of who we are"

OUR MINDS led us away, not society, not the media. Epiphany comes out of nothing.. there's no basis for it which is why it's absurd to base our beliefs on it. I think it's important to know what epiphany actually means so here's the definition.

A. A revelatory manifestation of a divine being.
B 1. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
2. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: “I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself” (Frank Maier).

I also suggest looking up manifestation if you don't know what it means.

The process of belief is an elixer when you're weak.. I must admit at times I indulge it on the sneak.. (quote from another BR song) wouldn't you guys agree that having an epiphany is awesome regardless of it being essentially meaningless? I mean, it feels awesome. I think I've had a few. In this case I mean a sudden realization that gives you a new perspective on your way of thinking.

One of my friends decided he believed in God a few weeks ago because of something that happened to him. While I'm disappointed in my friend, that must be a pretty cool feeling to have. Anyway, I guess this is irrelevant to the meaning of the song hehe.

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SwedishFish
12-27-2004

Rated 0 
I thought about the ending of this song as well and considered some of the same things that wrinkledphole mentioned. But i'm going to have to say I think crazy punk girl is correct. The lyrics go back in forth from the perspective of the narrator and the person he is critisizing. when he says "if it's real for me.. etc" and "it came to me" it is as if it is in quotes from someone else. someone who he is critisizing.

I have to say evms made a valiant effort in trying to interpret an anti-capitalist message in this song, but I think it was really a stretch. The song's about the fallacy of epiphany. That's it. Particularly relating to religion and philosphy - a common theme in Bad Religion music. I've never noticed emphasized marxist ideals coming through in BR lyrics before and I've listened to a lot of them. They don't tend to hide their messages so much, they seem to want the listener to understand. I'll have to read up on what the band members political ideologies are. Or does anyone know so I don't have to? :)

The (international) noise consipracy who claims BR as one of their top influences is clearly marxist, you might like their stuff. (I do). Though, if that's your thing i'm sure you've listened to them already.

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Philadelphia Eagles
12-19-2004

Rated 0 
God is filled with love!:

http://www.truechristian.com/atheists.html

--This is one of the reasons I'm an atheist.

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crazy_punk_gurl
12-09-2004

Rated 0 
"If it's real for me, do i have to prove it to you?" is spoken from the perspetive of the religious person. This song is basically stating the complete irrationality of so-called 'epiphanies', besically that they aren't genuine - "why do revelations fade to cold blue untruths?"

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The-Sink
10-29-2004

Rated 0 
good song but i think Staind's epiphany is better.

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wrinkledPhole
04-29-2004

Rated 0 
As time goes by I have changed my mind about the meaning of this song.

I think the lyric line to remember is "The Fallacy of Epiphany" That'll be our guideline. He talks about how we human beings have often guided ourselves along the lines of epiphanies or as soowt put it "the sudden supposed realization or understanding of something, often religious," which in turn have lead us astray from "the painful truth of who we are". Now how does Mr. Graffin comes to this realization? Through an epiphany. This lyric line "It came to me" illuminates his own epiphany. So in other words he saw the fallacy of epiphanies through an epiphany. So according to his logic his epiphany will "fade to cold blue untruths" just like the others that came before his. Haha, leaves the listener in quite a mental quagmire. I guess the absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

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brye
04-21-2004

Rated 0 
Yes, Yes Yes. Here is my addition....The Epiphany refers to the false sense of realization we get y living in a manufactured sense of reality. We are distracted from ourselves and een when we think we've found something, it turns to have been planted by a capitalist, with only profit in mind.

"What good is searching
if nothing's there to find."

We cant find ourselves if we're looking through tainted eyes. This song reminds me of RATM's line, "what does the billboard say, come and play, forget about the movement."

He's saying we've been distracted and here we are on the verge of discovery "Only to discover that our minds have led us away so far from the painful truth
of who we are." Damn its good! The leson, stop watching TV. Stop listening to your parents. COme up with a unique thought and don't give it up when it contradicts somebody eleses thoughts.

my $.02

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wrinkledPhole
04-17-2003

Rated 0 
Very well done EVMS. After reading your description I discarded my previous interpretations of what this song means. My was more generalized. I thought this song to be about the day we a person realizes that everything he/she have been brought up to be the absolute truth is in fact just manufactured truth. By "manufactured truth" I'm referring to public consensus, in other words, if society as a whole believes something to be true then it becomes truth. So my creating consensus we're only inadvertently blocking ourselves from free-thinking, in other words(like EVMS has said before) loss of identity.

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Akana
09-09-2002

Rated 0 
evms makes a really good point. Very thought out. ^_^

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evms
09-02-2002

Rated 0 
I believe this song has some grave marxist implications, on the nature of
alientation of man from himself.

> A new age of reason
> Brain treason to trick the mind

A "new age of reason'. Reason of the capitalists. Capitalists tell you,
"The more money you earn, the more free you will be." When in
actuality, earning a wage is enslavement -- This kind of trick
prevents workers from using their species-being (theoirizng,
philosophizing, writing papers, etc) and has them work only
as a means for self-nourishment.


> Only to discover that our minds have led us away so far from the painful truth
> of who we are
This has to do with the concept of alienation. Workers are alienated through
their mode of production -- it keeps them away from who they are, a 'socail
being' free from morality, religion, family, etc.

> What's right is wrong
> what's come has gone
> what's clear and pure is not so sure

The person in this song realizes that he is a 'social being' and is beginning
to free himself from certain forms of alienation.

> Come forth bear witness
> see the profit from your loss
See the "profit from your loss' Poltiical economists would like you to believe
that your loss of identity is actually 'profit' as you gain capital through working,
but in actuality you just lose your identity.

> Only to discover that our values ran us aground on the shoal in the sea of what
> we could be
Right, our values, our work ethic prohibit us from being social beings.

I havn't thought about this enough; but I think this interpretation works. Tell
me what you think :-)

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Madcappunk
08-27-2002

Rated 0 
yep, I agree with you all, we're not headed where we thought we were.

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weaselfierce
08-05-2002

Rated 0 
This song is in my oppinion one of the all-time best BR songs (and it takes a lot before anything can rival Parallel for that :) )

I think the song revolves around realization of our failures. Maybe not just as society but on ahuman level as well. We are realizing that we arent headed where we thought we were. The priomises become a lie

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Akana
07-31-2002

Rated 0 
This song is one of my favorites, and the chorus is the best. I think that it is saying that what we believe in and what we value have held us back, when thinking rationally and not holding beliefs long since past our use for them could have brought us so much further ahead than we are, and that our being the only "conscious" (using that VERY lightly, mind) beings on the planet has given us such a high opinion of ourselves that we do not see the horrendous acts of destruction and defilement we are performing to the Earth and its OTHER inhabitants. We can't seem to get that we're not the only ones that live here. So, in a rather large nutshell (like a walnut, or maybe even a coconut [but those are fruits, right?]), it means if we look at the world, what's considered to be right and good and the Truth, it will turn out to be false, and have been right under our nose the entire time.

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oldskoolpunker23
07-24-2002

Rated 0 
this song is like a theme song to me i might not be that old and i might not know what i am saying but i think it means the world is fucked up and we need something to blame it on so we blame the world for our problems... the song title means to cut the balls off jesus and eat them

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UnslaveSkater
07-21-2002

Rated 0 
AWESOME!!!

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Aerion
07-13-2002

Rated 0 
This song is really amazing, man. This is really a kickass band. Oh man, this song is fucking awesome.

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aebassist
07-02-2002

Rated 0 
soowt is definitely right, hence "the fallacy of epiphany". Best song on the CD.

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badreligionpigeon
06-20-2002

Rated 0 
have to say one hell of a song yet soowt pretty muched summed it up and i have to agree with him kick ass bad religion this was one cd worth buying i highly reommend it!!!!

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