Question about Green Disease

Bulldog88

Hi guys, looking for other opinions on the meaning of these two verses:

Course I know,.. then I don't
There's a stowaway with my throat
It's deceiving...
I don't believe him

We can scream,.. out our doors
Behind the wall a fat man snores
In his dreams he's,...
Choking Ti leaves

EP1973

I think the first verse there deals with the fact that greed is just part of the human mind and condition...and in the second one is imagery. A fat man is fat for a reason (he's well fed, or well off) and clutching Ti leaves refers to his dream (he's holding hands full of dollar bills)...besides Ti leaves being green, there are also some other connotations that can be inferred considering the importance of Ti leaves in Hawaiian culture...but I'm not going off on that tangent.

Bulldog88

Very insightful, thanks for your response!

i shit and i stink

I always felt that the whole song was about misinformation being fed to the masses "your money is safe, your money is now in danger..." etc, to keep them in a constant state of panic whilst the 'fat cats' took the cream, safe in the knowledge that the rest of the nation was too busy trying to work out whether to thank their lucky stars or press the panic button - and therefore too busy to notice what was going on. "I know, then I don't" is that whole state of confusion.

In the chorus the captain making the waves is the president, but the masses are crying to him for help, without realising that he's creating the perceived problems in the first place to serve his own needs. And thus he sleeps happily at night while the general populus is screaming out for leadership or aid.

I suppose my interpretation is a bit 'leftie' as we Brits would say, but I always imagined it to be a tune about how greed knows no bounds, even if it means skimming from the every people you are supposed to be protecting and serving.

Every time I listen to the second half of Riot Act I imagine it to be the most daming criticism of the them flawed Bush administatrion. And... every song kicks ass, too.

Bulldog88

That totally makes sense, I've thought that myself.