Song's meaning

[magdalena.]

Alot of people take this song to be a generalization about humanity's flaws, but the first time I heard this song, I thought Maynard was clearly refering to the fight for the "holy land"and how stupid it is and how they should just divide it right in two. Am I the only who thought this?

[Mya]

It doesnt make sense to divide the "holy land" in two... considering there are three major players fighting for the holy land.

[martyr_02]

EH... the whole monkey metaphor makes me think otherwise. I can see where your coming from though, what with the angels on the sideline and all. I actually thought about the holy land a little when i heard this song, but I think its a metaphor for humanities destructive nature. Eden refers to the earth in general. There's enough to go around if we'd only take care of it. REally its a eco-friendly song. They should play it on earth day.

[annie]

i like your idea. correct me if i'm wrong, but it talks about believing that god gave us our power/shape and that we use it in "his" name to kill for what we think we need to worship "him". i like that a lot more than the whole simple human conflict thing

thanks

[xPOGOx]

Hmm.

Eden + Angels on the sideline.

After eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the biblical account states, Adam and Eve are exiled from the Garden of Eden. To punish Adam and Eve, God set angels to guard the entrance to the Garden, after which point they lost access to the Tree of Life and their immortality.

EDIT:
Angels on the sideline,
Puzzled and amused.
Why did Father give these humans free will?
Now they're all confused.
I'm beginning to think that the line:
"Why did Father give these humans free will?"
Is not so much MJK asking the question, so much as it is the Angels asking this question amongst themselves as they watch from the sidelines.

[plastik]

Hmm.

Eden + Angels on the sideline.



EDIT:

I'm beginning to think that the line:
"Why did Father give these humans free will?"
Is not so much MJK asking the question, so much as it is the Angels asking this question amongst themselves as they watch from the sidelines.

I agree ... everytime I hear it I see it as a conversation between angels watching everyone fuck everything up.

The Bible also says that humans will one day be "over" angels in the "pecking order" so to speak, so I can understand why angels would be saying "These idiots are better than us?"

Seeing as God created humans in his likeness, there's a lot of sarcasm going on in this song.

[Muladhara]

Alot of people take this song to be a generalization about humanity's flaws, but the first time I heard this song, I thought Maynard was clearly refering to the fight for the "holy land"and how stupid it is and how they should just divide it right in two. Am I the only who thought this?

The angels are saying that humans are dividing it all right in two, not that things should be divided in two. Two = divided and bad, one = united and good.

[4degrees_under_fire]

I actually thought about the holy land a little when i heard this song, but I think its a metaphor for humanities destructive nature. Eden refers to the earth in general. There's enough to go around if we'd only take care of it. REally its a eco-friendly song. They should play it on earth day.

I would very much have to agree with this for the most part. Eden, in this song, does seem to relate more to our earth than it does the Garden. If we take care of it, this very much could be a peaceful, wonderful place to live. However, there are only so many people here who are willing to be peaceful. We are, by nature, a very violent race of people. Listening to the lyrics, MJK even points that out to anyone willing to listen. "Monkeys killing monkeys killing monkeys over peices of the ground" kind of explains it all. Land is (almost) the single biggest thing we fight about, and it's always about resources because one country is getting less of something than they feel they deserve. (The thing we fight the most about, btw, is religion. Check out some statistics. Last I saw it was still the #1 reason.)

Now the part that I'm not so sure about agreeing with is that it is an eco-friendly song. Personally, I don't really agree with it at all. To me, this particular song seems to be more about pointing out some of the faults of mankind, in essence stating, "Hey! This is what we're like now. Do you really think you're doing the right thing by continuing these pointless conflicts?" The conflicts we have with each other really are pointless, whether we realize it at the time or not, and there is one reason I can think of as to why we actually kill each other. It is because we, as a society, have become so powerful that we have no natural predators anymore. Think about it for a while. If we had predators that could actually hunt us on a more regular basis than the occasional shark/lion/tiger/bear attack, do you really believe that we would continue to fight amongst ourselves? It is the need and desire to protect ourselves and each other and common beliefs that bring people together to form communities, no matter how large.

[ataraxia77]

Here's a brushover on what I think is a key to interpreting this song;

http://toolnavy.com/showthread.php?t=47095

i.e. the song must be contextualized further to interpret more fully.