Re: Lying in the Hands of God...
I posted this in the other thread about this tune, but since this is more of a discussion about the lyrics, I guess I'll throw out my interpretation...It goes along with what a few others here have said, and it didn't take a lot of original thought, since I based it off this quote from Dave that was in his discription of the song from the Relix Magazine article:
"I don’t know whether it’s a song about being lost or being fuckin’ out of your mind because you licked some cactus or swallowed some mushroom somewhere and turned your head upside down. It could be “Hey! (hey), You! (you), Get off of my cloud.” It could be a lot of things. I like songs that just create beautiful images and that’s why I don’t want to talk about the lyrics because I just think it’s perfect. Some of the songs have to be open."
It sounds to me like it's someone experiencing some sort of mind-altering substance for the first time, and a spiritual, enlightened moment where they sort of stepped out of their own body, and felt things with an intensity they've never felt before. The lines of "if you never flew why would you cut the wings off a butterfly" are sort of speaking to those people who would keep these things out of everyones hands even though they've never experienced them themselves. ie - prohibition, war on drugs, etc.
At the beginning, he's saying he'd do anything "for just a taste of what you're holding", then he trys whatever it is - "here it comes diving into me - now the floor is the ceiling" he's experiencing the effects - and as the song goes on, he has this moment of enlightenment - "lying in the hands of God" - he's saying "save your sermons" about it being wrong for someone else...and toward the end, he starts to come down and back to reality "fill me up now drain me, skin begins to grow back slowly, faster until I'm choking"
Really, if you listen to the song with that in mind, all the lines kinda work.
However, I can easily see how this can also be interpreted as a purely spiritual song, but because of Dave's quote, I think there's a good chance that this is at least partially what it means as well. But I love the ambiguity.
Anyway, that's how I see it. Trippy as all hell. Great tune.
Last edited by Ram; 06-08-2009 at 06:17 AM.
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