"Angels/Losing/Sleep" and the struggle of faith

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On the way home from Toronto one weekend I was listening to the radio and one of the songs that was playing was "Angels/Losing/Sleep" by Our Lady Peace. The song came out in 2005 and even then and after I didn't really pay much attention to the lyrics (I usually don't most of the time but it's been a while since I've heard the song) but after hearing the first couple of lines I began to wonder if this was about someone going through a crisis of faith such as thinking about changing or leaving religion. There is another song that deals with loss of faith on the same album, "Where Are You?", I am aware of so maybe, if I'm up to it, might comment on that on a separate post. Wikipedia and Songmeanings do bring the loss of faith meaning up in "A/L/S" but here's my take on it.

The song opens up with the following lines:

"Looks like the holy ghost is gone

Now your afraid of yourself"

The holy ghost or holy spirit comes from Christianity with God being 3 persons and the holy ghost/holy spirit is one of them. With the holy ghost gone (and essentially the belief in a higher power) the person going through a crisis of faith probably thinking "What do I do now? Who or what do I turn to when I need answers? Am I a bad person for thinking thoughts that are against my current/prior religion/beliefs?" Pretty much a lot of doubt going through one's mind.

"Over your shoulder you have to watch 
Heaven fall into hell"

The person is still in pretty much doubt but after learning that what they used to believe was more or less of a lie the perfect world that was created comes falling apart. The way I see it is religion can give a sense of peace (more or less "You don't need to worry about anything as long as you put your faith in a higher power") but when something faith shattering hits things come spiraling down the drain.

"Looks like your boat's about to sink
So it's time to prepare"

The person now is on the verge of losing their faith completely and has a big decision to make regarding leaving or not. There may be some backlash from the family and friends of the person who aren't too open with someone leaving the faith so the person pretty much has to prepare for the aftermath of their decision.

"Even the angels are losing sleep
And the sidewalks are bare"

I'm not sure if the angels are actual angels or represent certain people. If this is supposed to to represent actual angels it could be the person's guardian angel or that angel on the shoulder working overtime in helping the person rationalize their decision. Bare sidewalks give the person the sense that they're alone.

"It's like the calm before the storm 
You better swim 
Just like it's cold before it's warm 
You'll get back here again"

The calm before the storm is the grace period before things get worse and in the person's case it's returning to safer shores such as returning to the comforts of having faith or the prior belief. There's also the decision to move forward and lose faith/change beliefs and it's now or never to make the decision. The person makes a decision and whatever they choose they can end up back in their crisis of faith again. For example the person wants to leave Christianity but still has some insecurities and decides to still practice the religion. Something comes up like an issue in the news or something bad happening to someone close and the person ends up back where they were before.

"I'll wait I'll wait till you fall from grace"

So apparently there's someone observing the person go through this struggle. The friend I'll refer to this other person. This friend is either religious or someone who has left the faith of the person. The friend to me is supportive of whatever decision the person makes. The "fall from grace" could either be leaving the religion behind or coming back to the state in which the person again goes through another crisis of faith.

"It's the calm before the storm 
It's there then it's gone"

Again with the grace period. The friend (or maybe the angel on the shoulder) is reminding the person it's now or never to make the decision.

"Oh it looks like the war was in your head 
Not your heart"

The decision to leave is more of a logical decision than something based on feelings. Or possibly the person is going through some depression and the struggle of faith is part of it. The war could be the decision itself and the battle is to make the decision.

"Just when you think it's figured out 
Well it all falls apart"

The person finally comes to a decision. Whatever the choice is the person seems to be going through a bad time. Person chooses to leave and loses friends and family. Person chooses to stay with the faith/prior belief and continues to suffer mentally.

Overall it has to do with someone watching from the sidelines as their friend is going through a struggle. It could be any struggle but for me the struggle in the song deals with changing or losing one's faith. Whether this has been discussed before or not (mostly leaning to the discussed before) maybe you see the same or similar. Maybe you see it a bit differently. Maybe I can look at "Where Are You?" in the same way.

What this "cunning linguist" has to say about "word crimes"

Well, I may not be a full-on expert out there on linguistics (yet I did get my BA in it) but to some people out there (mainly close relatives and their acquaintances) I guess I can consider myself one. Anyways when I heard that Weird Al was releasing new stuff one of the tracks I was looking forward to was "Word Crimes", a parody of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines". For those who haven't heard of the latter Thicke's song garnered controversy over the song's lyrics surrounding rape culture (the lyrics "I know you want it" following "good girl" creepy enough for you?). "Word Crimes", however, is a more family friendly song that looks at the "proper use" of English grammar, especially when on the internet we seem to poke fun at bad grammar (heck there are posters done by The Oatmeal on grammar).

What kinda irks me a bit is the song, with humour intended and more or less to the native speaker audience, carries some prescriptivism with it. Prescriptivism basically is the idea that there are these sets of rules for the language and these rules dictate the proper use of the language as opposed to taking a look at the language and how it's used in reality. (Am I off in my description? Have a dictionary definition or two!) Taking the word literally for example the definition of it has to do with something actually happening but nowadays it's taking on the use of meaning something figurative. Second thing to note is linguists aren't grammar nazis in general (there may be some out there but I haven't met any). Something like literally taking on a figurative meaning will intrigue a linguist rather than disgust them. The following slideshow is quite informative:

So you know a linguist from Jodie Martin

Anyway here's my little data contribution/two cents. I wouldn't worry too much of these so-called "Word Crimes" unless you're writing some major English test that requires the stuff prescribed in grammar books. Need something to fill up your schedule at university? Take an introductory linguistics course. Who knows, you may find out something about linguists and how some of these "word crimes" aren't that much of a crime. Since my battery is about to go out I'll end it here.