i agree w/ pretty much everything above...a man is hired to kill someone, only to be taken out himself to eliminate evidence of the crime.
what i find interesting is the structure...it's from a first person through most of the song, then all of a sudden the narrator sings "the night weighs heavy on HIS guilty mind" and it stays in third person...i've come up with two possibilities, though i'm sure there are more: 1) it switches perspective from the hitman to his "connection" who has betrayed him and observes his murder 2) the original narrator completes his mission and upon the bullet (from HIS gun) hitting the bone he becomes guilty and a dichotomy is created between the repentant soul and guilty body (being cloned)...where do you go when the bullet hits the bone? in this first instance, you go to a physical "twilight zone" brought on by anxiety and fearing the consequnces of our actions...the original narrator makes one last comment on his situation (the "fallin' down a spiral..." verse) before his soul separates himself from his body and takes over the narration: he watches his physical body die and is once again "cloned" as he earns total freedom as an entity...where do you go when the bullet hits your own bone? to a spiritual twilight zone that we will experience once we suffer the same fate as him
obviously i'm putting a lot more thought into the second interpretation. i think this is a parable of sorts: we know how it feels to do wrong and face the consequences of our actions, we can relate to the anxiety expressed in the first part of the song...what is scary is that we don't know the hour of our death and what lies beyond there is a total mystery, as well as if or not our actions during life will have any bearing on what happens to us when we die...it is clearly expressed and elaborated upon in the song how he feels when he puts the bullet to the bone of another, we can relate to that feeling. he says "we will come to know..." but we really already do, which is why it can be described to us. he doesn't describe the feeling of the bullet hitting his own bone because no mortal person can ever grasp it...you will come to know when the bullet hits the bone . . .
@ZinbobDan Maybe that is why George and Barry switch off on the vocals. That would make sense with the change of perspective. But I have always thought, and sang the lyrics. The night weighs heavy on THIS guilty mind. But every lyric sheet I see uses the word HIS.
@ZinbobDan Maybe that is why George and Barry switch off on the vocals. That would make sense with the change of perspective. But I have always thought, and sang the lyrics. The night weighs heavy on THIS guilty mind. But every lyric sheet I see uses the word HIS.
i agree w/ pretty much everything above...a man is hired to kill someone, only to be taken out himself to eliminate evidence of the crime.
what i find interesting is the structure...it's from a first person through most of the song, then all of a sudden the narrator sings "the night weighs heavy on HIS guilty mind" and it stays in third person...i've come up with two possibilities, though i'm sure there are more: 1) it switches perspective from the hitman to his "connection" who has betrayed him and observes his murder 2) the original narrator completes his mission and upon the bullet (from HIS gun) hitting the bone he becomes guilty and a dichotomy is created between the repentant soul and guilty body (being cloned)...where do you go when the bullet hits the bone? in this first instance, you go to a physical "twilight zone" brought on by anxiety and fearing the consequnces of our actions...the original narrator makes one last comment on his situation (the "fallin' down a spiral..." verse) before his soul separates himself from his body and takes over the narration: he watches his physical body die and is once again "cloned" as he earns total freedom as an entity...where do you go when the bullet hits your own bone? to a spiritual twilight zone that we will experience once we suffer the same fate as him
obviously i'm putting a lot more thought into the second interpretation. i think this is a parable of sorts: we know how it feels to do wrong and face the consequences of our actions, we can relate to the anxiety expressed in the first part of the song...what is scary is that we don't know the hour of our death and what lies beyond there is a total mystery, as well as if or not our actions during life will have any bearing on what happens to us when we die...it is clearly expressed and elaborated upon in the song how he feels when he puts the bullet to the bone of another, we can relate to that feeling. he says "we will come to know..." but we really already do, which is why it can be described to us. he doesn't describe the feeling of the bullet hitting his own bone because no mortal person can ever grasp it...you will come to know when the bullet hits the bone . . .
@ZinbobDan Maybe that is why George and Barry switch off on the vocals. That would make sense with the change of perspective. But I have always thought, and sang the lyrics. The night weighs heavy on THIS guilty mind. But every lyric sheet I see uses the word HIS.
@ZinbobDan Maybe that is why George and Barry switch off on the vocals. That would make sense with the change of perspective. But I have always thought, and sang the lyrics. The night weighs heavy on THIS guilty mind. But every lyric sheet I see uses the word HIS.