glory days Lyric Dissection

This song is written from Billy Pilgrim’s (Slaughterhouse Five) point of view. He is such an interesting character and because I agreed with many of his ideas this was a fun song for me to write. However, there are parts of this song that are purely Billy. 

Going to sleep shouldn’t make me so tired
But I wake up everyday feeling worse than before
It’s the same old things, different day and attire
Same old footprints on the hardwood floor

You know those times when you wake up from a super long nap just to be more disoriented and tired than when you fell asleep? This is about those times.
Just going through the motions, an endless stream of sameness.

Cinderella’s shoe fit
And the bad guys lost the war
And I came back home
So I shouldn’t ask for more
But my mind’s a graveyard 
And my footprints are imprinted on the hardwood floor
My mind’s a graveyard 
And my footprints are imprinted on the hardwood floor

A direct reference to a repeated phrase throughout Slaughterhouse Five
My mind’s a graveyard references the death that is constantly playing in his head due to PTSD. In my head, he has such a strict routine that he even walks and stands in the same spot, causing those areas of the floor to wear down. 

I stare into the sun and I feel no pain
That’s all reserved for my glory days
Where they glorify the cities we raised
For the cities we razed, they give us praise

He has become mostly desensitized to any pain that could be felt in the present times; however the past pain is still pervasive in his everyday life. Glory days is sarcastic— he should feel like a hero, but instead he just feels like a shell of a man. 
American propaganda and biased history lessons justifying violence (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and ignoring the problems that we as a country have created 

Ares must be proud cos he’s getting what he wants
And God laughs at them and ignores what they say
They say thanks, beg for a new day to come
A new day is here, full of death and decay

Pretty simple: the god of war is happy to see the death and destruction coming from the war
The invocation of a different god from a different religion; poses the question “if God loves us, why does he cause this pain?” Makes the listener question which god mentioned is really in charge of the current state of things. 
Blind faith just for things to get worse and worse. 

I’ve got connections
And we got our way
But at what cost
Thousands dead a day
You pray to the Bible
But you are the Bible’s prey
You pray to the Bible
But you are the Bible’s prey

If God is a vengeful God we are his victims. 

I stare into the sun and I feel no pain
That’s all reserved for my glory days
Where they glorify the cities we raised
For the cities we razed, they give us praise

So it goes
Ghosts of ivory and blue
Fly around the room
And I dance with them
So it goes
Ghosts of ivory and blue
Fly around the room
Children and old men

More direct references to the book.
The war claimed so many different kinds of people.

It’s here where they make their final stand
Pretty death’s only a part of a movie plan
But what about the life of a common man?
Well, I’m one, and I can see they don’t give a damn
Did we fight for Hollywood when we fought for this land?
Either way, now we stand on the hardwood floor
I don’t think it was like this before

Death only looks “pretty” — I use that word loosely — in Hollywood. What about the people that don’t get the luxury of having their death be fake and on a screen?
“They” refers to a government and society that cares not about its people.
“Fought for this land” —more like stole, but again this is not my POV. Anyway, this basically is saying, did we fight all of these wars just for people to only care about celebrities and millionaires and not the common man?
The intensity of the vocals dwindles here and we return to the first verse of the song. While Billy’s mind wasn’t like this before, the irony is that this has been and will always be happening as long as we keep entering wars. 
glory days
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