In Praise of Bacchus
Someone else had a similar thread and many people were saying this song was cryptic. So I just wanted to give my two cents in case anyone cared.
This song is hardly cryptic it’s actually genius. Peter Steele is drunk and he decides to go to his ex girlfriend’s house while heavily intoxicated. The lyrics are describing his journey to her home. When he is complaining to Bacchus (the god of wine) he’s enslaved to his addiction which is also his comfort. Comforted and controlled by his addiction.
So let me dissect this for you:
“The street lamps light a wet, old Red Hook road
A furry vino-tinted slave
Molten oil-painted Brooklyn Bridge
(Cobblestone grave)”
While he’s drunk he perceives the streets and Brooklyn bridge like oil paintings because it was raining so it looked light molten oil. He’s travelling down Red Hook road and reaches cobblestone street.
The furry vino tinted slave is describing himself as a slave to wine and when he drinks wine he feels like there’s something furry in his stomach.
“A lonely blue girl guards the river bed
She shakes her brown torch at the tide
On Pier Six we'd creep and count the cracks
(Side by side, see, we're counting cracks)”
Lonely blue girl from his drunk perception is the Statue of Liberty (she shakes her brown torch at the tide), he then reaches Pier Six. As you can see he’s describing his journey there and the sights from his own skewed drunk perspective.
“Your mom was out wearing herself inside
I'll stop the train to say hello
A used boyfriend's just bought her this new car
(I said, I know)”
He reaches his ex girlfriend’s house and her mother is hysterical because his ex girlfriend now has a new boyfriend, and Peter feels used because he bought her a new car.
From what I heard in his biography it is alleged that Peter wrote “you set me on fire” on this very car which he bought on that night, he then sat down on the pavement outside his ex girlfriends house after he had beaten up her new boyfriend, placing his hands behind his back waiting for police to arrive.
“She said burn
Together
Burn
We'll burn together”
He’s now waiting for police to arrive and his ex girlfriend said to him that she hopes he burns, and he complains to Bacchus that she said burn together.
“Now don't believe she'll never leave again”
He’s saying that even if he got back with her, she’ll probably just end up leaving him again. This is my two cents I’m happy to be corrected.