Your Blackout Interpretation

[NickDuffy]

I know everyone is focusing on LIVING THINGS right now but I wanted to take a step back from that and gather everyone's opinions on Blackout. What do you think the whole song is about?

 

I look at the song as two different moods of the same concept. It feels like a break-up song to me. Chester plays the more angry, emotional role while Mike plays the relaxed, calm role. Chester blurts out "No remorse for the trust you're breaking" and "Suffocate in the mess you're making" as if he is pissed and Mike calmly states "A future gazing out / a past to overwrite" which makes me think that he just wants to move on knowing he has a bright future ahead and doesn't need to feel broken or hurt.

 

Your thoughts?

[Twiilite]

Blackout is always relevant to me. Such a badass song.

 

I feel that Blackout tells the story of something falling apart. Whether it's a relationship or something else is up to interpretation. The first heavy half is the initial reaction with Chester calling out and blaming everything but himself. The second half is essentially the revelation stage where Mike is the inner voice saying to move forward with life. As the soft vocals continue, Chester accepts the idea and joins Mike in the song to a blissful conclusion.

 

So overall I agree with your viewpoint.

[Dave-Stone55]

Looking at the album as a whole Blackout to me is a song about the government, and how inevitably, they somehow screw us over. At the same time, we all want to be patriots and believe the best of our country and the way it's run, hence the lines "I'm stuck in this bed you made, alone with a sinking feeling, I saw through the words you said, to the secrets you've been keeping." The secrets refer to how the government runs things. The band is watching the world fall apart, and they can't help but hold on to the lies the government is spreading because they think that they can still hold up this lie as a truth.

[FearOfTheDuck]

That's what I love about the ATS lyrics- they can be political or personal, depending on your point of view. And they don't ram either down your throat.

[Guest Inky]

A lot of people get a break up feel with the lyrics, but I never really have. In some aspects, I see it dealing with a bad relationship, but for some reason, the lyrics to me, mean something about the world. Like the band is speaking to us about the current world status.

[lgr]

it does certainly feel like a break up song - the latest LPTV said something about BID being rooted in finding some sick joy in destroying the person you love (not sure if they meant that mentally or physically :/ ...) and I've always seen Blackout in similar terms.

 

never thought about the political angle but i guess it fits too

[BarackObama]

My friend thinks its rape O___O

 

 

I have my own interpretation, but its more of a personal story that I've attached as my own (I wasn't raped). It was just a bad relationship.

[hahninator]

Obviously about sex.

 

"You've gotta get it inside. You push it back down, you push it back down, you've gotta get it inside."

 

Duh.

[Reflectionist]

Blackout. To me, it's the frustration of dealing with someone who has been medicating with hard drugs.

 

Literally, when you black out, it's because your eyes are filling with blood.

 

Suffocate in the mess you're making. Say that it's not your fault, instead that I am mistaken.

Fuck it--are you listening? (You're not, because you're tripping your everloving dick off.)

 

You're about to black out. Blood in your eye.

Push it back down.

 

...The song, as a whole, accurately describes taking hallucinogens to me.

 

Floating down, as colors fill the light.

You look up from the ground, in fields of paper white.

[Bliss]

It's about politics

[Xero21]

I'm just gonna post what I wrote on LPA:

 

Oh my god. "Blackout." What the government does to official documents when they censor them. They black them out.

 

 

The song is about government cover-ups. How the fuck did I not get this until it was pointed out to me?

 

"I'm stuck in this bed you've made, alone with the sinking feeling."

The idea that the government has made and continues to make a bunch of shady, corrupt deals, and that the citizens are the ones who pay.

 

"I saw through the words you said, to the secrets you've been keeping. It's written upon your face, all the lies how they cut so deeply"

"You push it back down, blackout"

 

"You say that it's not your fault, instead that I am mistaken. You said it's not what it seems, no remorse for the trust you're breaking."

The idea of "blowback," that the U.S. government's involvement in shady deals with foreign countries leads to terrorism. But the government says no, how could it be our fault, we're the victims.

 

"Suffocate in the mess you're making, you can't get enough, you take and take and take and take and take..."

This could be interpreted a little more domestically; super-PACs? politicians who accept money from banks and corrupt business men?

 

I'm still not quite sure what to make of Mike's part. Sarah's interpretation of the viewpoint of the people killed by the atomic bomb is good. Also, and this is kind of silly, Mike's imagery makes me think of aliens/UFOs.

 

"Floating down, as colors fill the light, you look up from the ground, in fields of paperwhite."

"And floating up, you pass us in the night, a future gazing out, a past to overwrite."

"So come down, far below, we've been waiting to collect the things you know. Come down, far below, we've been waiting to collect what you've let go."

 

This could all sound like a "believer" making his inner appeal to alien life. "what could these things tell us if we could communicate with them?"

 

or maybe it's about satellites/drones, floating up in the sky, watching over us and working to rewrite history, for the future.

Edited June 6, 2012 by Xero21