I can kinda see it being taken as an Iraq metaphor, but I take the song as being more about apocalyptic fantasies in general, and how empty they are. Each generation thinks it's the last hurrah, this is the end of the world. But then it doesn't end, and so we keep dragging ourselves along, while waiting for the next big sign to come along and promise the end. In that sense, I read the references to sores, scars and the light integrated in your mind as references to nuclear war, the flash of the bomb, the scars and sores of the aftermath, and the industry as the military industrial energy that might take us there someday, and that shares such apocalyptic views with us.
I can kinda see it being taken as an Iraq metaphor, but I take the song as being more about apocalyptic fantasies in general, and how empty they are. Each generation thinks it's the last hurrah, this is the end of the world. But then it doesn't end, and so we keep dragging ourselves along, while waiting for the next big sign to come along and promise the end. In that sense, I read the references to sores, scars and the light integrated in your mind as references to nuclear war, the flash of the bomb, the scars and sores of the aftermath, and the industry as the military industrial energy that might take us there someday, and that shares such apocalyptic views with us.