Slow Cheetah

I'm going to try abandoning my past as an English major and avoid an extended explication...

I think these lyrics reference the slow cheetah as someone known to the speaker who didn't turn out "right," but nonetheless tries to force themself into the mold. The song opens with a declaration by the speaker that being dead on the inside is unacceptable, and a condition with no remedy. While he had his chance at accepting insanity and therefore gaining protection from the rain, or the masses beating down upon him, he also "had his chance to break," or break away, something commonly considered so bad that, for someone who can't follow the fold, it must be good. If I knew more about Bonnie Brae other than the fact that it's a street/area in LA (and I only know that thanks to Google,) I'd have more to say about the next bit other than the speaker poses "Why try to run away" as a rhetorical question, and that this line signifies him rejecting the mandate of the majority which dictates a specific manner of existance, whether or not it applies to a specific person. In other words, since the speaker's happiness and ability to live fully is his own creation, following the will of "they" would essentially be the same as running away from himself. In the second half of the song, a girl who knows nothing about herself is told by people referenced only as "they," (perhaps the same "they" as in "you know what they say,") that she will "never be as happy as the girl on the magazine," which can be assumed to be the stereotypical bleached, airbrushed, starved, makeup-ed, faked-up girl on all the covers of those magazines that offer up the secrets to weight loss, mind blowing sex, looking beautiful, achieving perfect style, etc. She "buys it," or believes them, "with her pay," or by sacrificing what she has earned by her hard work. In the chorus, the speaker beseeches the "slow cheetah" to come nearer to his "forest." "Looks like it's on today" seems to indicate that a conflict exists, most likely between the options of doing what is expected and doing what is right. The speaker persuades the slow cheetah that, regardless of what "they" dictate, the forest is something "euphoric." Coming before the speaker's forest, therefore, is a metaphor for the slow cheetah doing what is best for herself. After all, even if a cheetah should live on the plains, a slow cheetah could never catch a gazelle. It would only ever struggle miserably in vain to hunt while slowly starving to death. After this, the speaker speaks of "their" words as meaningless babble, and again refers to the conflict mentioned in the chorus, urging the slow cheetah not to hesitate. Then, action occurs, specifically a walk to a "burial ground," and also "a very old dance" with "a merry old sound," indicating that the speaker, and perhaps the slow cheetah, as well, engage in a time honored celebration of the death of what one can infer to be his/their allegiance with the previously referenced "they" by happily dancing upon the grave where it has been buried. Thus, don't listen to what everyone else has to say about your life. Any group large and vague enough to be known only as "they" could never hope to know the best course for any one person to take. The only hope any individual has for decent advice is in another person much like them.

... Well, I said "try." I tried. I just didn't succeed.

Also, I'm going to throw in a couple of corrections, because I'm an anal retentive bitch like that....

Waking up dead inside of my head Will never never do there is no med

Any other day and I might play A funeral march for Bonnie Brae