Monday, April 19, 2010

Sympathy for the Devil

For whatever reason, I sometimes assign theological meanings to songs. Take Filter's Hey Man, Nice Shot, whenever I listen to that song, I always think about Jesus' Crucifixion; I will Survive (Cake's, not Gloria Gaynor's) turns itself into a melodrama of turning over a new leaf, casting out evil forces from your life.
Last Saturday I was listening to Nine Inch Nail's Something I Can Never Have, and I found something in the lyrics, the slow, gradual processions that I had never thought about before. As a whole, the album, Pretty Hate Machine is a rant against some unspecified girl (though I've heard Tori Amos is the impetus for Reznor's debut, I don't think that's true).

What I heard in the lyrics is the imagined plea of Satan before he rose against God.
It was the chorus that got me thinking about a different meaning to the lyrics; let's be clear up front that I'm not supposing Trent Reznor had any different or secret meanings hidden away in this track-this is just me imposing an old theme onto it.
This is me taking a sympathetic view to Satan, and supposing that he wasn't all that convinced himself, that he should take on the Throne.
The lyrics reveal a scene in the play, the rising action just before the uprising against God, the climax. This would be opposite the scene Milton gives us at the beginning of Paradise Lost, as a juxtaposition. This plea, heard through the lyrics of Something I Can Never Have, would echo the mood set, when Satan, "Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf." (Milton)

Ok, am I explaining this clearly? I'm not writing a term paper, so I'm going to take an aside and make sure you're still with me. Satan's mutiny against God is the climax of the story. Before the climax, in the rising action, is what I'm thinking about here with the NIN song, and I'm making these literal references with Milton because his work, Paradise Lost takes place on the boot heels of the climax.

Still here?

Sure, the lyric, "I still recall the taste of your tears," is a little hard to work with for what I'm going for, and all I have is John 11:35, "Jesus wept." But, let's go on.

You make this all go away/I'm down to just one thing- alluding to God's infinite power, and Satan's only thing left. If Satan has come this far in his betrayal, he's pretty well fallen, and the act itself now appears to be the only conclusion as to what has led up to this point, he has "crossed the Rubicon" as it were.

I just want something/I just want something I can never have- the point of Satan's betrayal is to claim God's Throne, and yet he must realize, even now, that it is unattainable.

You always were the one to show me how/Back then I couldn't do the things that I can do now- acknowledgement or recognition that he is defying his creator. "Back then," an allusion to time, another point that Satan is aware that he is dealing with an infinite entity, something that does not recognize time, John 8:58, "Before Abraham was, I Am."

In this place it seems like such a shame/Though it all looks different now/I know it's still the same- this is before the Fall, so Satan is still occupying Heaven. He is looking upon all that he used to know, and must realize that he will never again be admitted. Soon to be, "As far removed from God and light of Heaven/ As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole." (Milton)

You make this all go away-here is the plea. Satan, now unsure, wants things to go back, somehow, to the way things were.

I don't meant to present an argument as to what happened before the Fall, this is just the music video I came up with in my head, driving along, listening to "Track 5", as I had forgotten the name of the song. Though, I did look up the number five just for posterity's sake.

Five words in the title, Something I Can Never Have.
Five letters in several key players for my proposal:

J E S U S
S A T A N
J U D A S
D E V I L

And, the song it self runs for 5:54...well, almost had 5:55, damn.

There are certain works you should read if you're interested in the notion of Satan's act of betrayal, why it happened, what it led to, the meaning, so on, so on.

Murder Mysteries, by Neil Gaiman
To Shoot an Elephant, by George Orwell
Paradise Lost, by John Milton
Dante's Inferno, by, yes, Dante.

Truth be told, I've never read all of Paradise Lost, but if you reference it enough people just assume you have. It's ok, try it. Oh, also tell them Milton was blind and he dictated the whole thing to his daughter, that'll make the pants drop every time.

1 comment:

  1. I can tell you what that song means to me...if you really want to know.

    ReplyDelete