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.
I've been dredgin' the lake of my soul for a place I've never been
Scattering the last of my thoughts to capture a whim
Oh, filled my lungs to limit
And found why we stay in denial
On this unclimbed stairway
Watching life go, by...
I'll make it easier on those of us who don't know that I am still here,
imagining dial tone schemes, dial tone schemes
When I lost myself
In the Dark Charade...
But I promise my performance was flawless
I lost myself in the Dark Charade
And I swear I'm far more crazy than the rumors make me out, to be...
Crazy...
Crazier than me...
.
All we are, is all we are
Featureless, with inside scars
We sink through walls, and float right through it all
If all we are, is what they say
We'll become them along the way
Who were we before we were ashamed?
Don't tell them the cause
Between fragments of all of us
Still the rain to rhyme the reason
Takes some time to find the One
To find the soul to make me God enough
That I could save us all
And do you love me now that I can save us all?
Do you love me now that I can save us all?
Do you love me now?
If you'll just stand over here, we'll find a place where you can waste away
Sorry it's not what you sought, but superstition is all we brought today
Today
I'll return you to the Wind for circumstantial assurances, love
Sold the sea to buy the ship...
I think I may have fucked up things again
Found a way to make your soul alive, to make you Slide...
So who will be the first in line?
This was all an unfortunate mistake
Do you recall a little bit of innocence, a time when we could still, forgive and forget?
I remember plastic pills and crystal balls within syringes filled, filling up with
Algorithms, circuitry - this fluid frame has shown me things
I fear, I know, I believe
So who will be the first in line?
They're not there
They're not there
Don't look at them...
Don't look!
STARE with your menacing cinder eyes,
at the least of us who've given their lives
where the sanguine ought to be we pale in the light we bend
Ohh, enough said...
Where's... the love? you liar...
Scattering the last of my thoughts to capture a whim
Oh, filled my lungs to limit
And found why we stay in denial
On this unclimbed stairway
Watching life go, by...
I'll make it easier on those of us who don't know that I am still here,
imagining dial tone schemes, dial tone schemes
When I lost myself
In the Dark Charade...
But I promise my performance was flawless
I lost myself in the Dark Charade
And I swear I'm far more crazy than the rumors make me out, to be...
Crazy...
Crazier than me...
.
All we are, is all we are
Featureless, with inside scars
We sink through walls, and float right through it all
If all we are, is what they say
We'll become them along the way
Who were we before we were ashamed?
Don't tell them the cause
Between fragments of all of us
Still the rain to rhyme the reason
Takes some time to find the One
To find the soul to make me God enough
That I could save us all
And do you love me now that I can save us all?
Do you love me now that I can save us all?
Do you love me now?
If you'll just stand over here, we'll find a place where you can waste away
Sorry it's not what you sought, but superstition is all we brought today
Today
I'll return you to the Wind for circumstantial assurances, love
Sold the sea to buy the ship...
I think I may have fucked up things again
Found a way to make your soul alive, to make you Slide...
So who will be the first in line?
This was all an unfortunate mistake
Do you recall a little bit of innocence, a time when we could still, forgive and forget?
I remember plastic pills and crystal balls within syringes filled, filling up with
Algorithms, circuitry - this fluid frame has shown me things
I fear, I know, I believe
So who will be the first in line?
They're not there
They're not there
Don't look at them...
Don't look!
STARE with your menacing cinder eyes,
at the least of us who've given their lives
where the sanguine ought to be we pale in the light we bend
Ohh, enough said...
Where's... the love? you liar...
Lyrics submitted by discrepancy
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Two thoughts:
the dark charade is depression. The song delves into their battle with depression and fighting to overcome it. People told them to get over it or simply didn't understand their mental situation at the time. This is an attempt to try and explain it to those people.
a relationship that has gone astray. They tried their best, but never seemed to be enough and this song is them asking for an explanation of why? what needed to be done? The last line in the song really hits this home for me, in that perhaps they finally have realised that no matter what they did their partner did not really love them (hence liar!)