Meaning of The Catalyst

Discussion in 'Linkin Park Chat' started by linkinlovprk, Aug 3, 2010.

  1. #1
    linkinlovprk

    linkinlovprk Lpfuse refugee

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    So now that a lot of people have listened to the full song in it's entirety, I'd like to know what you guys think the song means, how the lyrics fit with each other. At first listen it could seem to be just some random words that sound matured put together, but it's not just that. So what do you guys think about the lyrics?... Discuss.. Hahaha!
     
  2. #2
    hawk

    hawk because the internet LPA Super VIP

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    I am not quite sure what it actually means. No real meaning comes into my head when I read/hear the lyrics, maybe other people here might be able to get something out of it but I can't. The only thing I get is when Chester singles "will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns....(and so on)", when I can humanity killing themselves.....
    I don't know.....
     
  3. #3
    Gloomy Mushroom

    Gloomy Mushroom Absolute Zero LPA Super VIP

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    By all the "Bless You"s in it I thought at first it was religious and then I concluded it's about someone sneezing :lol:
     
  4. #4
    Zane

    Zane WARRIOR PRINCESS LPA Team

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    I've got two things. For one, I saw someone say this in LPL about the title the catalyst which is a bond between two chemical substances. In this case I think the title represents the bond between two absolutely new sounds Electronic and Rock.

    Now for the meaning of the song (I got this while working out and listening to the song), it's stating a kind of a forgiveness type song. For the most part of the song Chester and Mike sing about all sorts of wrong, but the ending is when they sing Lift Me Up, Let Me Go almost as if asking for forgiveness. It taken literally it is like someone who died going to heaven. If taken in my respective way, I'd say it's more like it doesn't matter if you can't do something, eventually the thing you want will eventually happen. Well there's my idea
     
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  5. #5
    Derek

    Derek LPAssociation.com Administrator LPA Administrator

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    It's not a religious song at all. The mentions of god are meant to be ironic and not a declaration of LP as a Christian Rock band like everyone seems to be thinking.

    While I cannot say my interpretation of the song is 100% correct (I'm not Linkin Park), the way I read this song is that it's meant to be from the POV of someone who has seen the ills of war, has committed a few himself, and possibly is experiencing (or has experienced) a nuclear holocaust and is on the verge of death and thus lamenting to god in the hopes that if Heaven does indeed exist, that his prayers will gain mankind forgiveness for what they've done. I don't view it as a religious song necessarily, but more a song in the same vein as What I've Done meaning wise. The lyrics are conceptual, and despite Mike being shy to declare ATS a concept album, the lyrics DO tell a story and are meant to take people on a visual journey from beginning to end.

    My reasons for thinking the way I do:

    "Symphonies of blinding light": The light of an atomic bomb is extremely bright, blinding, and masks everything around it.

    "Burn inside the fires of a thousand suns": This is a reference to the quote from the Bhagavad Gita that was translated from the binary code in the "2nd Message". It was used by J Robert Oppenheimer to describe the power of the atomic kind and what mankind had created.

    "God bless/save us everyone....for the sins of...": One man trying to gain forgiveness for what mankind has done to the world, and how it brought about our destruction.

    "Lift me up...let me go": The character in the story is close to death and is asking to die.

    It's a concept song if I've ever seen it, and I think people need to get over their god stigma and look further than the word to what this song is really about instead of shunning it for saying "god" several times. It's not LP being Christian (god is a universal concept btw, not just a Christian concept) but instead it's deeper then that.
     
  6. #6
    Zane

    Zane WARRIOR PRINCESS LPA Team

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    WOW derek, after reading that...I just hope the rest of the album has lyrics that follow in a storyline and as great as The Catalyst. I just can't wait for the album now :D
     
  7. #7
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    It's not a religious song at all.

    I'll dissect it for you.

    God bless us everyone = Let there be a catalyst that changes the hard times into good times
    We're a broken people living under loaded gun - We're just humanity at the breaking point, any second and we'll expose the animals that we truly are.
    And it can't be out fought, it can't be out done, can't be out matched, can't be out run
    = our demise is inevitable no matter how hard you try to combat it. We are a primitive dangerous species.

    And when I close my eyes tonight
    to symphonies of blinding light
    When we dream of world that is overwhelmingly different for the better
    (God bless us every one we're a broken people living under loaded gun) basically it's saying never mind that dream, we are what we are. We're hopeless.
    Like memories in cold decay
    Transmissions echoing away
    = recollections of the past that linger coldly in our "souls" and transmit a feeling of pity that keeps amplifying.
    Far from the world of you and I where oceans bleed into the sky Is saying that wanting such a thing as that dream is implausible and that it's just so far out of reach of the reality between us all as human beings.

    God save us everyone we will burn inside the fires of a thousand suns
    = Let there be some way that we can change ourselves before we destroy ourselves

    The sins of our hand = all the wrong things that we have caused to happen, pain, suffering,
    the sins of our tongue = (I'm going to keep this literal) this is about dogmatic and hurtful speech. The words we write, the words we say, the ideas we come up with are all dragging us further into a pit of our own immorality
    The sins of our father (you can take this as God or you could not) Basically it means the sin of the ones who come before us, we're paying for and if you take it to mean God then it means the hypocritical bullshit that a deity had bestowed upon us all.
    The sins of our young What we teach our children, not raising them to be honest and moral beings , and knowing that even if they are good there is still a chance they are corruptible.

    Lift me up = Let us raise above the failures of our humanity
    Let me go = Let us evolve into something better or else we'll just keep regressing and eventually destroy ourselves
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2010
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  8. #8
    Derek

    Derek LPAssociation.com Administrator LPA Administrator

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    Jesse's interpretation makes me love the song more.
     
  9. #9
    Benjamin

    Benjamin LPA team LPA Super VIP

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    Thanks for projecting my thoughts and typing them out for me Jesse :lol:

    I'll just 3rd Jesse and Derek when I say this isn't religious at all.
     
  10. #10
    Manu

    Manu Seeking tenderness with a dagger

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    Jesse totally nailed it.
     
  11. #11
    hawk

    hawk because the internet LPA Super VIP

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    Derek and Jesse - you both win a cookie.
     
  12. #12
    Benjamin

    Benjamin LPA team LPA Super VIP

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    Good luck slipping them past you who
     
  13. #13
    Louis

    Louis Message me if you need to talk. We love you all. LPA Team

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    I just think it has to do with the whole atomic bomb thing like Derek said. I'll edit this with details when I think about it some more.
     
  14. #14
    Geoff

    Geoff Hipster Kitty

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    i definately agree that it has nothing to do with religion, which my friends have tried to seem smug and tried to point out, but "god save us" is just an exclamation , but i like the point about the thousand burning suns being about nuclear war, with the burning of that and lives of people lost should we fall to that, it has a MTM feel to it with the doomsday clock theme :)
     
  15. #15
    Jesse

    Jesse Out of the abyss. LPA Über VIP

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    The thing about my interpretation is that it doesn't deny it has to do with nuclear war at all. It just never mentions it. Surely we can destroy ourselves by atomic bombs, which only supports my idea that the song is about how fucked up we are as humans.
     
  16. #16
    Alexrednex

    Alexrednex Well-Known Member

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    AMEN!
    I know what you mean, and when they say "God" i know its kinda sarcastic.
     
  17. #17
    the enigma

    the enigma The Routine Scar

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    How 'bout a whole package of Oreo's? I'll need your shipping addresses to send them to you.
     
  18. #18
    Rosh

    Rosh Well-Known Member

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    I prefer Derek's interpretation to Jesse's.

    Though while it's not a religious, I don't think the reference to God is "sarcasm".
     
  19. #19
    usblackbird

    usblackbird Well-Known Member

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    I just so happend to be reading George H. W. Bush's state of the union address from 1991, in which he talks about the Persian Gulf War, and found these:

    • "We can find meaning and reward by serving some purpose higher than ourselves—a shining purpose, the illumination of a thousand points of light"
    • "And we all realize that our responsibility to be the catalyst for peace in the region does not end with the successful conclusion of this war."

    Oddly enough the war started on August 2nd, 1990. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_war

    Could these offer some insight into the meaning of the song? I'm not sure, but I figured I'd talk to you guys about it.

    ////

    I just realized I didn't really answer your topic. As for my true interpretation of the song? I still think it's a tongue-in-cheek reference to how God (i.e. the catalyst) is used by religions to justify the issues going on in the world, moreover to affect people's decisions/opinions, such a justification for war (any of them), unjust laws (prop 8 in California) to name a couple.

    PS My apologies if I offend someone in the above post.
     
  20. #20
    erasus

    erasus Well-Known Member

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    I hear hope in this song... especially in the way the beat flows. I think the "Catalyst" are people themselves ... the chemical reaction that can cure the horrible things we've done.
    Also i find it pretty similar to What i've done
     

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