Wolves

Since no one asked, I’m dissecting the lyrics to the pan-acreage hit “Wolves” by Mithras Farm. It’s a song about Strasbourg.

They’re at war with these ones and those at war with these

The near constancy of war is one thing, but this is really about the forces that drive us to fight each other, rather than those forces. We’re slaves to the concept of teams, sides, parties, so much that we can’t see who is pulling our strings.

I used to walk by this statue, “Monuments aux morts,” at Place de la Republique several times a week; it’s a mother mourning her two sons, one French and one German. Strasbourg changed hands several times over the last few hundred years. Nationalities changed and the people were enrolled in armies and propaganda across the border in spite of themselves. Languages were spoken, then banned, then encouraged when most who spoke them were gone.

The city is beautiful and retains architecture from the Middle Ages, mostly because neither side wanted to destroy the city even as it left its grip. Both nations both thought they would get it back one day, which is probably why the cathedral, whose construction started over a millennium ago by Saint Arbogast, still stands.

Bringing all the know-it-alls down on camel knees

This references the biblical James as he positioned himself in prayer with such frequency that he had calloused knees. He may (or may not) have been a vegetarian and probably was as doubtful and soul searching as the next guy about what’s-really-going-on-here. He may or may not have anything to do with the rest of the song. My stepmom told me about him.

Where bullets lodge in buildings

This reference situates us in Strasbourg’s cathedral square, where a shell remains embedded in a building from the 1870 siege during the Franco-Prussian War. The city became part of Germany (one of many times) following the siege.

the clock chimes in base ten

Earlier, this same square hosted the Temple of Reason, the temporary name for the Our Lady of Strasbourg cathedral as the Jacobins smashed statues, monuments and concepts related to religion in their pursuit of equality during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution. Reason and logic gave way to decimal time:

The gods have left the seasons

Names of the months were replaced with secular terms and standardized to 30 days:

and the cock replaced the hen

Meanwhile actual advocates of equality, like Olympe de Gouges who stood for women’s rights and people’s choice in their form of governance, were betrayed by their fellow revolutionaries and killed.

But the rooster as a symbol of France became popular during the Revolution and can also represent forgiveness, as the cock crowing marks a new day and a new start.

How can you find meaning when the rules always change

Strasbourg had previously been Lutheran/Protestant, surrounded by Catholic towns, but following the French Revolution both religions were banned. Mayor Dietrich, a respected scientist and revolutionary who commissioned the creation of the Marseillaise national anthem, was guillotined for being too moderate in times of radical terror.

Are we just the new normal or is normal getting strange?

The Strasbourg cathedral herself was seen as a symbol of both religion and inequality by the Jacobins, who took offense at the cross on the spire (at one time the cathedral was the tallest building on earth) and planned to lob the whole tower off.

Why does that cathedral wear a bonnet scarlet red

To save the church from the destroying factions, a local locksmith and member of the city council repurposed the iconic Phrygian cap, the red bonnet worn by revolutionaries and symbol of the French republic. A giant hat was fashioned for the cathedral to wear, covering the cross and displaying the red hat from afar. It was intended to keep the hordes from destroying culture and it worked.

Why the papa smurf hat adorning Mithra’s head?

All Smurfs (a Belgian creation) wear Phrygian caps, but Papa is the only one with a red cap like Mithras, the mysterious Persian cave bull slayer that inspired countless temples across Europe.

What’s a revolution if there’s nothing new to say?

The American Revolution recycled the mithraic imagery an associated the phrygian cap with freedom, as the hat had been worn by freed slaves in Roman times. Mithras and his freedom cap became Walking Liberty, his cape of stars transformed into the American flag.

Lady Columbina or Columbia was early personification of America much like the Marianne for France. She had a dual role as warrior and mother, portrayed in political cartoons as both welcoming and disciplining.

Like Mithras, she complemented her cape of stars with the red hat, which was replaced in imagery by the bald eagle over time.

The eagle in American iconography is thus the continued representation of mithraic tauroctony that was mysteriously included in temples throughout Europe. The elements are always the same – the flowing cape, the Phrygian cap, a snake. (But where’s the bull?):

The bonnet-wearing bull slayer is thus carried through to the eagle, a tauroctony hidden in plain site.

Happy in your misery, you’ll make a baker’s day

This reference to the number twelve is to reflect humanity’s attachment to the number, showing up in the imperial measurement system as 12 inches to a foot, a remnant of earlier duodecimal counting systems that appreciated the number of factors when doing math with 12 versus 10. Whole societies are dedicated to instilling a 12-base in modern times, denigrating the inflexibility and non-divisibility of the decimal system – it’s fascinating.

When a dozen’s just a dozen and you don’t even know why

We feel a connection to the number twelve, but we’re not sure why. We find throughout history

12 jurors, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 months, 12 disciples, 12 zodiac signs, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 hours on the clock…but why 12 stars on the European flag?

Thirteen is the Judas that makes the demon sly

The American flag has a baker’s dozen of stripes to denote the thirteen colonies. But it’s also the less-than-perfect number of levels on the pyramid of the great seal and prevalent in American imagery. 13 stars, 13 olive leaves, 13 arrows. In a biblical sense, thirteen can symbolize both rebellion and growth.

Aren’t you jealous, baby, if even just a smidge
Of the one millionth follower to jump off the Brooklyn bridge?

The United States, via globalization, now generates the majority of the world’s meme culture.

You teach me all the things I’d never learn in school

Schools either indoctrinate too much one way or not enough of the other and people increasingly distrust institutions or become polarized in which bodies they’ll accept knowledge from.

I wake up and can’t wait just to break a brand new rule

The US also led the planet in pandemic panic and set unprecedented global health policy, including rushed government mandates and the encouragement of citizen enforcers of arbitrary policy shifts. The same politics of fear that leads to consolidation of power is used as a reaction to terrorism, global warming and social upheaval. But what is driving the fear and who can save us from it?

If you’re happy and you know it, wag your tail

If humanity is flawed, it might be because we live in a material world that drew Lucifer the fallen angel down with its glorious gravity and delightful depravity. We hang out with this dude and marvel at his recycled creations.

If the global community is the bride of Christ that the catholic church talks about, then maybe we’re all a bit devilish and this is a love story of sorts. Jesus is literally in love with humans and our deliciously dirty world. He adores us unconditionally, but his parents may not approve of the union.

If your cynical it’s time to go to jail

Religious folks are taught that hell is a punishment and that the devil must reside there. A one-way ticket to endless torture, pain, longing and dissatisfaction. For some that’s life itself here on Earth. For others it’s a scare tactic of a possible impending doom, but it’s based on fear and misunderstanding.

Tried to slip out the back door of the most exclusive clubs

Jesus, head over heels, doesn’t want to abandon his fiancée, but it’s so difficult for people to remember they are loved in the shadow world. There’s infectious amnesia and rampant fear, pandemics which no earthly billionaire can effectively treat.

Called my mom one Tuesday and chewed my fingers down to nubs

Jesus calls on his mom, the parent of the New Testament because mothers are the embodiment of unconditional love, sharply contrasted with the vengeful father of the Old books.

When’s the end, she laughed, but she really kind of meant it

A mother is not able to leave her child, not unless she is not well mentally or physically, not unless she is dead. Her devotion knows no end and this is the parent that is needed to bring the father’s wayward son back, his fallen angel. The naughty brother.

That’s where papa took the truth and kinda sorta bent it

The catholics and protestants don’t agree on Mary. Protestants have rejected her as a mother and treat catholic adoration of her as idolatry, much like the worship of the golden calf of the Old Testament. The father creator could save face and appear stern by hiding as an earthly being capable of unconditional love, a mother. Marianne, mother of revolutions. Lady Columbia, walking liberty herself.

There’s stars, they say, in the sky somewhere up there

Twelve stars, to be exact, the same ones that defined the European flag.

“A woman clothed with sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars,” the woman described in book 12 of the Revelation is depicted as Mary in the Strasbourg Cathedral. The Council of Europe donated the stained glass on the left a year after adopting the flag from this depiction. A statue featuring the same crown of stars has resided in the cathedral for 200 years.

If you didn’t wear those damn thick glasses, you’d probably know where

But those stars are also on display somewhere else, underground.

My dog’s howling at the moon cuz the wolves all went on breaks

Maybe these are all depictions of the same thing, a loving mother who can’t abandon her children:

And someone should wear a riding hood, but I aint got what it takes

Marianne is a contraction of Marie and Anne, the mother of God (Jesus) and of humans (Mary herself), respectively. Humans are born to a material world so Marianne/Columbina/Mithras/Liberty is the mother who loves her children unconditionally. She is not slaying the beast, she’s taming it. She’s saving it.