EXIT WOUND - BROKEN DOWN

If you are reading my blog for the first time please go back and read "EXIT WOUND" as this is a closer look into the meaning of the story, and lyrics that tell that story.

'Exit Wound' as a title is a play on words. If you switch the words around they would fall into this sentence: 'The WOUND you will give me will allow me my EXIT'. So in other words it is an exit wound or wound allowing an exit, not an exit wound or the exit of an object creating or causing a wound (deep and confusing?). Let that soak in while you read this next part.

I'm now going to break down the lyrics line by line to give you the full story around what the single line lyrics narrowly portray, strap in!

EXIT WOUND
Verse 1:
Don't need a speech, don't need to run, don't need to reach I've got this gun
The plan I formed for me to rise past bloodshot vision in my eyes
The rest I'll leave it up to you, and trust you'll squeeze this trigger through
Don't let me down I'm on my way, I need to count on you today

The main character, who we will refer to as "the dying" is telling the other character, who we will call "the friend", that the dying does not want to hear a speech on morality or why it is wrong to put someone out of their misery by assisting them to die. The dying is also eluding to the fact that he is unable to move or is incapacitated, "don't need to run" or in other words "I do not require the need to move or go anywhere because I have you, "this gun". The 'gun' reference itself is a metaphor for a tool to make his escape. He has hatched this plan to accomplish his design and the friend is the entire plan. The dying is placing all responsibility on the friend in order for the dying to beat the disease and that is on it's final day of destruction. Today they must make their move in order for the dying to be able to end this destruction and win the battle.

Chorus:
Tomorrow you can go and steal away
My freedom bows to you today
Tomorrow you can find a better way
But as for me yah, I need you today

As the friend is faced with this great decision at the silent insistence of the dying, the dying can see that the friend would rather put this off another day and think about it more. The dying knows that tomorrow will be too late. His freedom is in the hands and at the mercy of the friend.

Verse 2:

Call it evil, to me it's good, beyond what you have understood

The sickness lives inside of me, but soon it takes us, you will see

 So all I ask of you is to end a life and killing of a friend

This monster running through my veins can not defeat while you remain

 

Sensing some serious internal struggle on the part of the friend, and attempting to aid him in his moral dilemma, the dying explains that this is not a choice that requires the usual good/bad evaluation, rather it is beyond the understanding of the friend and that only the dying is making a decision here. The friend is simply acting as the hands of the dying, not as the friend himself. The dying knows and sees his fate although the friend can only see that in this moment the dying is still alive. In a twist of perspective the dying in essence is asking for the friend to end the killing that is happening right before his very eyes; the killing of a friend by ending what fragments of life are left while there is still a chance to do so. The illness runs through the veins of the dying but the dying knows that he can not be defeated as long as the friend, in his health, is willing!

 

Bridge:

I've never called on you like this, so just this once won't you assist?

And break these chains, been binding me, just close my eyes and set me free

 

The dying looks into the eyes of the friend with desperation and an final plea that this request, although significant and final in nature, is not one that the dying would ask under any other circumstances and that their history and past should support this claim. The dying is bound without the ability to free himself, but the friend holds the keys in his trusting hands.

 

Outro:

Rise and save me, save me, rise and...

Rise and save me, He will understand if you save me.

 

The dying feels the end approaching and becomes more urgent with his attempts to make his argument to the friend. As the final pinnacle to his declaration, the dying states that God himself will understand, if the friend would but perform this final act; an act of salvation.

 

Again, I appreciate your open mind and appreciation for the complexities and complications of life, and death. This is a very somber and sacred topic, one that I hope you feel I have not taken lightly. I have deliberately left the ending unrealized and open. My intension for doing such a thing is that I believe we must each make our own decisions on how we would preform while in the shoes of either of these two characters and you do not need my finished ending to slant or persuade you otherwise.