Born of a Broken Man

His thoughts like a hundred moths Trapped in a lampshade Somewhere within Their wings banging and burning On through endless nights Forever awake he lies shaking and starving Praying for someone to turn off the light

I'm going to ignore all the previous views and take a fresh (not religious or historical based) perspective on these lines by analyzing them as a standalone text (which they are not, although they certainly are good enough to be)

Lets take thoughts to literally mean thoughts, the line "their wings banging and burning" can mean pain and "on through endless nights" can mean lengthy periods of time, possibly sleep interrupting. The metaphorical lampshade is the lyricists mind and the light is awareness, awareness of the suffering, horrors and abhorrent acts committed daily by man unto himself, others and mother earth. Now i certainly know that with my awareness of the world and what i know of what we are doing i find myself wishing that i could "turn off the light" meaning to lose my awareness, return to the bliss of ignorance, although knowing that this is impossible i know the closest thing i can achieve to that feeling comes with awareness. judging from other lyrics from RATM the Zach is all about awareness, this stand alone section could be reference to the suffering brought through awareness. that's my two cents worth, i wonder how that will go down in the community and if ill get flamed for not following the last 3 pages of status quo.

This is the story of Zach de la Rocha's father, Berto, who, as an artist, of the group Los 4, suffered great emotional stress. His works were often politically-charged social commentaries, and this probabaly served as a catalyst for Zach's political awakening.

Yeah, this song is about Zack's dad, and I guess the only information that I can really add to what deltajoy wrote is that Zack had a hard time singing this song live (when he was still with Rage) and that it took him years to finally write it in the first place. I'm glad I got to see them perform it live (which I think they only did a handful of times) before they broke up.

yes it is about his father, his dad became extremely religous and started fasting and made his son do it also when he was over. religon destroyed his father he belives because he started destroying his art work when he got religous or something to that affect

THIS FUCKEN SONG ROCKS.. me and my band we covered it and we had the croud screaming ... the song has really good guitar riffs and its very easy to play.. 1hour to learn

indeed this song does rock,RATM is the only good rap-metal(i hate that term so much)some of their best lyrics

I'm wondering why it mentions Jesus if it's about his dad. Unless his dad's name is Jesus?

it probably mentions jesus as it is saying zach blames jesus for the pain his father went through(raped the spirit he was suposed to nuture)

Why does he talk about Jesus? I thought this song was about his father.

I don't get how he figures it that way... :-(