Born of A Broken Man (Am I? Are We?)
* * *
This song has always been very important to me, has always resonated deeply. One, the band and song are incredible. Full of energy, full of authentic, raw emotion (like most RAtM pieces). Beautiful, melodic but always with a tinge of unfiltered anger, resentment, a rebellion toward…something, always.
Are we truly our father’s son (or mother’s daughter, you get the idea) ? How much of them do we carry with us, by choice or otherwise? What do we do when we realize we may carry more of their flaws within us than the lessons they’ve taught us, the problems they want us to avoid? What if we can’t? What about the problems they can’t teach us about because they themselves haven’t yet learned to face?
I love my father. I always have, I always will. He’s always been in my life when he could just have easily been absent. He’s never had anything resembling any easy life and even though it usually meant him not being around very much, I’ll never stop appreciating the sacrifices he made and the hard work he put himself through to give me, as cliche as it sounds, all of the opportunities he never even dreamed of.
But nothing is pure or golden. What about the qualities that I don’t want? Do I truly carry them, do I imagine them? What do I do if they are all too real?
* Lyrics *
My fears hunt me down
Capturing my memories
The frontier of loss
They try to escape across the street where
Jesus stripped bare
And raped the spirit he was supposed to nurture
In the name of my
In the name of my
Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man
Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man
Like autumn leaves
His sense fell from him
An empty glass of himself
Shattered somewhere within
His thoughts like a hundred moths
Trapped in a lampshade
Somewhere within
Their wings banging and burning
On through endless nights
Forever awake he lies shaking and starving
Praying for someone to turn off the light
Born of a broken man
Never a broken man
Born of a broken man
But not a broken man
