Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ

Album: Transgender Dysphoria Blues (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • Against Me's Transgender Dysphoria Blues album deals with gender dysphoria, following the coming out of their frontwoman Laura Jane Grace as transgender. This song finds the vocalist turning her rage inward, almost cursing herself for being born this way. She told NME: "The chorus is about Mussolini and his lover Clara who after the war were both beaten and bludgeoned and then hung from the rafters of the gas station – but the verses about that point you realise transition is something that you have to do and you're like, 'F--- it.'"
  • Grace expanded on the song's meaning to Kerrang! magazine: "The lyrics are about fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Clara, who were hung from an ESSO station rafter after the fall of fascism in Italy," she said. "The song is about how much of life is about perspective, and how much of truth is about perspective. Someone like Mussolini or Osama Bin Laden - those are people that were viewed as messiahs or great people by some people and obviously not so much by others."

    " I don't revere those people," Grace continued, "I'm not saying that. But in your own life, on a smaller scale, you have to realise that the truth is based on perspective, and don't let anyone else's truth dictate to you what is real. That's the message."

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