What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
To learn more about participating in the Genius Editorial project, check out the contributor guidelines.
These lines come from verbatim from the opening few paragraphs of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Miller published the novel in the 1930s in Paris but its highly erotic and inflammatory content kept it from being published in the American novelist’s home country for more than forty years.
As Refused say, they are evoking the spirit of 1968’s rebellion, using these revolutionary words as an introduction. In the same way that Miller noted you only need a voice to sing a song, Refused are saying that you don’t need money or power to use your voice and be a revolutionary.
Again provided by the peerless Jeremy Larson (see my above Say Anything review).
This is not hyperbole… it’s really that ginormous
After all, it’s been 10 years since …is a Real Boy came out. Holla!
I’m referencing the Smashing Pumpkins' 2000 album Machina (pronounced MAW-keen-uh), which was just a little too big, ambitious, and spiritual to overcome Limp Bizkit and Korn in terms of record sales. But who gives a shit about record sales, huh, Fred Durst? Who are people still listening to?!—but I digress. The comparison is natural because Hebrews is just as ambitious and just as much of as gamble.
ACTUALLY, it’s odd, how closely Max Bemis’s discography mirrors Billy Corgan’s. There was the visceral, guitar-laden rock debut (…is a Real Boy and Siamese Dream, respectively); the expansive double-album sophomore effort (In Defense of the Genre and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness); these, in both cases, are followed by a string of albums that both hit and miss with fans; just something I noticed.
