Annotations for Fury

Lyric: You waste twenty years
 And wind up alone demented
Annotation:
You may finally one day give up your religion (if not your faith altogether), but those outside the family of faith are often ostracized for not believing in some form of higher power. And as the previous lines mentioned, you will always carry some of the guilt and fear that generally comes with a lifetime of religious teachings.

Lyric: Cracks healing up
 Future soul forgive this mess
Annotation:
Bellamy argues that ultimately religion is only a damaging influence on our lives, not a positive one, and that in the future we will regret being steep in it for so long.

Lyric: Breathe in deep
 And cleanse away our sins
 And we’ll pray that there’s no God
 To punish us and make a fuss
Annotation:
This is probably the most powerful chorus that Matt Bellamy has ever written for a song. At face value you could simply claim that Matt Bellamy is dismissing the idea of God or any sort of higher power. But a closer analysis reveals a far more depressing idea. Bellamy previously stated that he believes the real reason people pray and subscribe to religion is to find some sort of “forgiveness” for our earthly crimes. He goes one step further here by saying that instead of praying for God (or another power) to forgive us, we should be praying that such beings don’t exist at all. After all, who can truly say who is good and who is evil? We only have an esoteric idea of how we’re  supposed to act on this earth. What happens if we die and find out everything we believed is wrong? That despite a lifetime of good deeds we are still punished in the afterlife (if one exists even exists)? Oblivion, the complete cessation of our existence, seems more preferable than to face the wrath of a judgmental deity.

Lyric: You’re so happy now
 Burning the candle at both ends
Annotation:
“Burn the candle at both ends” means to stay awake late into the night and still be awake come sunrise. Bellamy uses this expression to describe people who are plugged into a religion at all hours and, by following it blindly, believe that it gives them some semblance of happiness.

Lyric: Your self-loving soothes
 And softens the blows you’ve invented
Annotation:
While “self loving” might seem like a masturbation reference, it’s a criticism of the effectiveness or relevance of prayer. Bellamy contends that praying to a higher power, whether on behalf of ourselves or others, is basically an empty exercise to make ourselves feel better about our faults and failings. We pretend that there’s something on the other end listening to us, something that can make everything right in the end, to fix our imagined “sins.”

