So this has been.my favorite song of OTEP's since it came out in 2004, and I always thought it was a song about a child's narrative of suffering in an abusive Christian home. But now that I am revisiting the lyrics, I am seeing something totally new.
This song could be gospel of John but from the perspective of Jesus.
Jesus was NOT having a good time up to and during the crucifixion. Everyone in the known world at the time looked to him with fear, admiration or disgust and he was constantly being asked questions. He spoke in "verses, prophesies and curses". He had made an enemy of the state, and believed the world was increasingly wicked and fallen from grace, or that he was in the "mouth of madness".
The spine of atlas is the structure that allows the titan to hold the world up. Jesus challenged the state and in doing so became a celebrated resistance figure. It also made him public enemy #1.
All of this happened simply because he was doing his thing, not because of any agenda he had or strategy.
And then he gets scourged (storm of thorns)
There are some plot holes here but I think it's an interesting interpretation.
Naked as sin, an army towel
Covering my belly
Some of us blush, somehow
Knees turning to jelly
Next, next
I was still just a kid
There were a hundred like me
I followed a naked body
A naked body followed me
Next, next
I was still just a kid
When my innocence was lost
In a mobile army whorehouse
Gift from the army, free of cost
Next, next
Me, I really would have liked
A little touch of tenderness
Maybe a word, a smile
An hour of happiness
But, next, next
Oh, it wasn't so tragic
The high heavens did not fall
But how much of that time
I hated being there at all
Next, next Now I always will recall
The brothel truck, the flying flags
The queer lieutenant who slapped
Our asses as if we were fags
Next, next
I swear on the wet head
Of my first case of gonorrhea
It is his ugly voice
That I forever hear
Next, next
That voice that stinks of whiskey
Of corpses and of mud
It is the voice of nations
It is the thick voice of blood
Next, next
And since the each woman
I have taken to bed
Seems to laugh in my arms
To whisper through my head
Next, next
All the naked and the dead
Should hold each others hands
As they watch me scream at night
In a dream no one understands
Next, next
And when I am not screaming
In a voice grown dry and hollow
I stand on endless naked lines
Of the following and the followed
Next, next
One day I'll cut my legs off
Or burn myself alive
Anything, I'll do anything
To get out of line to survive
Never to be next
Never to be next.
Covering my belly
Some of us blush, somehow
Knees turning to jelly
Next, next
I was still just a kid
There were a hundred like me
I followed a naked body
A naked body followed me
Next, next
I was still just a kid
When my innocence was lost
In a mobile army whorehouse
Gift from the army, free of cost
Next, next
Me, I really would have liked
A little touch of tenderness
Maybe a word, a smile
An hour of happiness
But, next, next
Oh, it wasn't so tragic
The high heavens did not fall
But how much of that time
I hated being there at all
Next, next Now I always will recall
The brothel truck, the flying flags
The queer lieutenant who slapped
Our asses as if we were fags
Next, next
I swear on the wet head
Of my first case of gonorrhea
It is his ugly voice
That I forever hear
Next, next
That voice that stinks of whiskey
Of corpses and of mud
It is the voice of nations
It is the thick voice of blood
Next, next
And since the each woman
I have taken to bed
Seems to laugh in my arms
To whisper through my head
Next, next
All the naked and the dead
Should hold each others hands
As they watch me scream at night
In a dream no one understands
Next, next
And when I am not screaming
In a voice grown dry and hollow
I stand on endless naked lines
Of the following and the followed
Next, next
One day I'll cut my legs off
Or burn myself alive
Anything, I'll do anything
To get out of line to survive
Never to be next
Never to be next.
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Boy recalls with bitterness waiting in line to lose his virginity in an army truck/ mobile whorehouse, the unpleasant experience and everything surrounding it shaping his later bleak worldview.