Album: Mer de Noms (2000)
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Songfacts®:

  • This could be based on a poem by William Blake called The Sick Rose:
    O rose, thou art sick!
    The invisible worm
    That flies in the night,
    In the howling storm,

    Has found out thy bed
    Of crimson joy,
    And his dark secret love
    Does thy life destroy.
    >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Ukash - Vratislavia, Poland
  • This is a song about an abusive relationship. The "rose" has two different meanings for the song. In the beginning the rose is the victim of the beast, the temperamental goat, the snail. In the end the singer "rose" and stood up for himself. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Milk - United States

Comments: 7

  • Vario from GermanyThe part of the "snail feeding on the rose" is probably form Hans Christian Andersen's story: The snail and the rose-tree. The rose represents selflessness/giving, and the snail represents egoism/taking. It matches the "abusive relationship" theme (a person being abused by someone with narcissistic personality disorder).
  • Anthony Ireland-martinez from Prineville, Oregon The movie is very touching.
  • Galo from Cuenca, Ecuadori thought it was just about maynard walking into a room somewhere, walked in on a guy making out with a chick, possibly named rose, maybe the guy has GOATee, (nah), and maynard just panics, he like side steps the whole situation, a bit embarassed and then later on feels shi**y about the whole situation, and in the song he reflects on this
  • Dustin from My Home, Ini was browsing APC songs and i come across this one and i read the poem given by Ukash

    O rose, thou art sick!
    The invisible worm
    That flies in the night,
    In the howling storm,

    Has found out thy bed
    Of crimson joy,
    And his dark secret love
    Does thy life destroy.

    and i recognized it because in my english class a while back this was my assigmment as an individual to annalyze it to discover its meaning and i came to the conclusion that its about a beautiful (The invisible worm
    That flies in the night) and the person that loves her murdering her (Of crimson joy)crimson obviously the color of blood to put her out of her missery (Does thy life destroy) and low and behold an A on this assigment i get cuz i hit the nail on the head. So use this to help guide you to find the meaning of this song
  • Patch from Bangor, MeI think the invisible enemy in this song is inner demons or drugs.
  • Randolf from Greenville, NcGood call Ukash. The worm in the poem could be imaged as the beast, snail, and goat in the song. But that really only pertains to the first verse doesn't it? The rest of the song is about Maynard (the Rose?) fighting back against the worm(snail, goat, beast, invisible enemy). The song in that way allows our protagonist Maynard to overcome his parasite, therefore compromising the tragic end to the Rose of Blake's poem. Now, even if you take the 2nd and 3rd ROSE references to be verbs ONLY (I rose, I roared), it doesn't mean you cant see Maynard as the self-empowered self-saviour. But I'd like to think that the ROSE references there are meant to be puns (rose[n.]-the flower, rose[v.]-ascend). Basically the end signifies the Rose's (Maynard's) self-salvation and his unwillingness to sacrifice himself to the worms, snails, beasts, us...
  • Ian from New York, NyReally? Wow, i thought this song was about beauty and the beast. Man now i feel like an idiot.
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