I don't mean to gloat, but I have this song completely figured out:
As most of you know, this album, in short, is about a man's downfall into depression/madness and eventual suicide.
The first verse is about how he is changing into and becoming a drug addict. Stuck in the dream is the high that he gets from the drugs.
The chorus is saying that the old him, the one who didn't do drugs and tried to live a good life, is gone. In his place is a person who uses drugs and gets high, because getting high lets him forget about how messed up his life is. If he wasn't high, he'd have bad memories, so instead he gets high.
Read this part carefully:
I can try to get away but I've strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away all of my bad parts
I don't want to listen, but it's all too clear
This is the character telling about how in one instance when he got high, he heard a message from inside his head that frightened him. Unfortunately, he did this to himself (getting high) and there's no way to quickly become sober again- he's strapped in. He wants to scratch away the sound (wants to block out the frightening message). He doesn't want to listen but it's all too clear- he is scared of the message but he's aware that it's the right message and he is indeed having these thoughts- it's all too clear. But he doesn't yet tell us what the message is.
Finally, the last part of the song:
it won't give up, it wants me dead
and goddamn this noise inside my head
This reveals what the scary message that he was hearing before. When he was getting high, the voice was telling him loud and clear that the message wants him dead. The noise in his head won't stop, the message is very clear. It wants him to commit suicide. Shoot, that sucks, but that's the truth. He needs to commit suicide.
There you go, ladies and gents. The true meaning of this song and its place in the overall story of The Downward Spiral- the character's realization (not the act, yet) that he will kill himself.
I don't mean to gloat, but I have this song completely figured out:
As most of you know, this album, in short, is about a man's downfall into depression/madness and eventual suicide.
The first verse is about how he is changing into and becoming a drug addict. Stuck in the dream is the high that he gets from the drugs.
The chorus is saying that the old him, the one who didn't do drugs and tried to live a good life, is gone. In his place is a person who uses drugs and gets high, because getting high lets him forget about how messed up his life is. If he wasn't high, he'd have bad memories, so instead he gets high.
Read this part carefully: I can try to get away but I've strapped myself in I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears I can see it killing away all of my bad parts I don't want to listen, but it's all too clear
This is the character telling about how in one instance when he got high, he heard a message from inside his head that frightened him. Unfortunately, he did this to himself (getting high) and there's no way to quickly become sober again- he's strapped in. He wants to scratch away the sound (wants to block out the frightening message). He doesn't want to listen but it's all too clear- he is scared of the message but he's aware that it's the right message and he is indeed having these thoughts- it's all too clear. But he doesn't yet tell us what the message is.
Finally, the last part of the song: it won't give up, it wants me dead and goddamn this noise inside my head
This reveals what the scary message that he was hearing before. When he was getting high, the voice was telling him loud and clear that the message wants him dead. The noise in his head won't stop, the message is very clear. It wants him to commit suicide. Shoot, that sucks, but that's the truth. He needs to commit suicide.
There you go, ladies and gents. The true meaning of this song and its place in the overall story of The Downward Spiral- the character's realization (not the act, yet) that he will kill himself.