Idioteque

As corny as this will sound, I think this song is about global warming and other environmental problems. Of course, I'm aware that many people think global warming is a lot of scaremongering and false alarms. Maybe that's why Thom wrote such a heart-wrenching but enigmatic song to get his point across. Maybe this review is bastardizing his message or maybe I'm totally wrong, but here's what I think... "I'll laugh until my head comes off; I'll swallow until I burst"- hailing from (and scared by) a hedonistic family, this seems like something I'm very familiar with. People have a tendency to abuse good things until they end up doing much more harm. Swallowing food is a good thing (it keeps you alive), until it turns you greedy, bloated, and prone to heart attacks. Laughter is a good thing, but now we use it as a drug. We abuse it and accept the cost of making people feel bad for our temporary highs. This is like the abuse of our natural resources. Using them helps us build civilization. But now businessmen capitalize off them out of pure greed. So what if we're using cheap labor and the cheap plastic packaging and doodads we produce are worthless? So what if we're destroying all that we live off and that gave us beauty, worth, and life to begin with (the environment)? We're making money, right? The same concept applies to war. Let's go kill innocent people because we might get something (cough cough oil cough cough Iraq) out of it.

"I have seen too much; I haven't seen enough; You haven't seen it"- Kind of like a twist on the title of "An Inconvenient Truth." Even though there's an OVERWHELMING (open any National Geographic, Smithsonian, etc.) body of evidence that global warming (even if you don't believe in "global warming" per say, incredibly increased carbon dioxide levels that make the seas more acidic, leading to the current plight of fish and jellyfish population explosion, and supported by cold hard ice samples, should at least be able to pass through your cynisism) people will ignore it because they don't want to believe it. They face two choices: possible disaster or a lifestyle change. People don't want to give up their overfed, overindulgent lifestyles, so they'll pretend they haven't seen enough evidence.

"Here I'm allowed everything all of the time"- refer to last two rants. :)

"Ice age coming.... Let me hear both sides..... Throw it on the fire"- This could be describing the situation of a politician or other influencial person trying to decide what to do about this impending environmental crisis. They choose to go for the quick fix that obviously won't work just to say they've made a decision. Obviously exposing a world to fire will cause more problems than the ice age would have. That's okay though. If the responsibility's off that one person, the rest can be left to future generations.

"We're not scaremongering. This is really happening."- I think this is self-explanitory. It's kind of like a Cassandra thing (for anyone who knows Greek literature). For those of you who are saying that it's the corrupt politicians who are saying this: scaremongering politicians never need (or would be reduced to) pleading. They get plenty of followers. Who are the most sucessful politicians? Usually radical dictators. It's the ones who warn of the true dangers that are always ignored.

"Mobiles chirping; Take the money and run"- Cell phones are symbolistic of our absorption in modern technology and our disregard for nature. "Take the money and run" is again saying how greed and corruption are, unfortunately, the most influencial factors on people.

"Who's in bunker...Women and children first"- Even if my environmental theory is too specific, he's talking about some man-made apoccalypse. War is symbolic for any struggle.

*Sorry about spelling. It's late.