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.
Old friend, they told me you were dead
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence in the name of love!
But I still feel you,
Despite your tombstone,
But I still feel you,
Despite your tombstone,
So friend you must still walk among us,
In places we don't dare to glance
I saw you killing Aristotle
But I know its all part of the plan.
Old friend, they told me you were dead
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence in the name of love!
Old friend, they told me you were dead
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence,
This violence,
This violence in the name of love!
To awake and avenge the dead,
To awake and avenge the dead,
To awake and avenge the dead.
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence in the name of love!
But I still feel you,
Despite your tombstone,
But I still feel you,
Despite your tombstone,
So friend you must still walk among us,
In places we don't dare to glance
I saw you killing Aristotle
But I know its all part of the plan.
Old friend, they told me you were dead
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence in the name of love!
Old friend, they told me you were dead
The news broadcast, The funeral
500 channels focus in
Your love was
Ravished, drawn, and quartered
The soil was swift to drink her blood
This violence,
This violence,
This violence in the name of love!
To awake and avenge the dead,
To awake and avenge the dead,
To awake and avenge the dead.
Lyrics submitted by Second Self
To Awake and Avenge the Dead Lyrics as written by Edward Carrington Breckenridge Dustin Michael Kensrue
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
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I wrote this 10 years ago and then people started talking about 9/11 (even thought it predates 9/11) and Princess Diana, so I'll say it again. Dustin wrote it about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance, using that novel's main character as an analogy for the lack of faith, and the lack of credence given to those of faith, by millennial US enamored with scientific progress, the separation of the cult of the body over the life of the mind, and the tenets of dualism as set out by Aristotle. ZATAOMM is about an individual who, after experiencing a philosophical revelation pertaining to Western dualism as initiated by Aristotle that would, if widely heard and understood, would fundamentally and ontologically change the nature of global consciousness, is treated as a schizophrenic and electro-shocked into a state of amnesia w/r/t his aforementioned revelation. The book depicts his memory returning, along with the urgent import of the ideas which were essentially snuffed out in an act of cultural suppression. That is what this song is about, end of story.