End of Trilogy Tribute

What does ''May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead.'' mean?

Ye be right Lass, ti's indeed an Irish quip. But, its rooted in Christian lore. For the devil to take your soul whilst you are living, you have to give it to him willingly. From the time you die till ye are in sacred ground interred, your unprotected soul is fair game. Tis why no body is left unprotected by a most trusted friend e'en though the night without repose. A seconds faltering or the invitation in to the those of evil will give the devil his due. Go ye to an Irish wake and try to catch the night watchman asleep at his task. Verily it can't be done. Once the body is encrypted in sacred ground, the devil is deprived of any further opportunity to secure the dead man's soul. The saying says, may you be safely in heaven, buried in sacred ground, before the devil has his last chance to claim your soul.

SwobyJ wrote:

What does ''May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead.'' mean?

Ye be right Lass, ti's indeed an Irish quip. But, its rooted in Christian lore. For the devil to take your soul whilst you are living, you have to give it to him willingly. From the time you die till ye are in sacred ground interred, your unprotected soul is fair game. Tis why no body is left unprotected by a most trusted friend e'en though the night without repose. A seconds faltering or the invitation in to the those of evil will give the devil his due. Go ye to an Irish wake and try to catch the night watchman asleep at his task. Verily it can't be done. Once the body is encrypted in sacred ground, the devil is deprived of any further opportunity to secure the dead man's soul. The saying says, may you be safely in heaven, buried in sacred ground, before the devil has his last chance to claim your soul.

DoomsdayDevice wrote:*goosebumps*

I think that the meaning of this song... is that the "catalyst" is no one...is everyone, we have been the catalyst to all of the happenings in this world... God is not the catalyst, but the only one that can 'neutralize' the effect of the catalyst(s). Since the lyrics say "Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?..." and then it says "No" ... I guess implying some sort of hope in God. I just heard this song 5minutes ago... so idk....

The Catalyst is us.. we are the inner rising consciousness that is awakening..
...
Meaning: We are citizen living in dangerous times, ruled by people who want dont want us to peer thru the veil and seek truth.
...
The band is talking about the cosmic changes that stem from the heart of our solar system. Waves of energy that are re-writing our DNA and increasing our evolutionary process. And we are at the brink of that transformation... and the oceans will bleed into the sky.. we will become a collective consciousness. There is no line on the horizon.

Second, I'm surprised by the fact that no one has brought up the fact that the word "NO!" does not appear at the end of this song. Does it not seem strange that a word sounded so strongly throughout the song fails to resound one last time in final defiance to those who would seek to control or destroy us? Is this a subtle admittance by Linkin Park that we can scream and shout all we want, but it's ultimately futile? NO! In fact, I believe that this is a brilliant and perfectly executed lyrical nuance. Does it not feel right to shout "NO!" one more time, and that the song is somehow incomplete without it? I know I've added it on the end several times myself. In the end, to truly affect change, it cannot simply be Linkin Park saying "NO!" It is us who must take up the call. They have left the song open and allowed us to finish it. We have been given the final word in this song, and it will be up to us to use it against those who would seek to endanger and control our future. NO!

This song has relevance to many things, but in essence, I believe it is about nuclear weapons as stated above. However I think the song also makes specific references to the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japan.

"And when I close my eyes tonight,
Two symphonies of blinding light!"

I heard it as "two symphonies." While we slept, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki the bomb went off. Perhaps this is supposed to be the idea of being responsible for the deaths of so many haunting the nightmares of people like Oppenheimer, whose quote about the bomb appears in the intro to the album: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

"Far from the world of you and I,
Where oceans bleed into the sky!"

Japan was far from the US, so the effect we were having on them by dropping the nuke was a distant concept, happening in a "land far away" far out in the ocean.

"For the sins of our hands,
The sins of our tongues,
The sins of our fathers,
The sins of our young."

The people who were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not directly responsible for the war; they were mostly civilians. They were being punished for the "sins" of others.
I think there are many other references to nuclear weapons, and the way the world has changed after the fear that they bring.

I think, described in a short way, it's about the human race the destroying itself and realizing that something has to be done about this. But there's so much more in this song