Burning Bright (Field on Fire)

Album: Not the Actual Events (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This blazing track is filled with distortion that abates in the chorus, as Trent Reznor sings, "Break through the surface and breathe."

    There is plenty of apocalyptic imagery:

    The flies come roaring out
    And will surround the entire world
    And blacken out the sky and every last one of you
    Like a plague of locusts


    And liberation through destruction:

    I am forgiven, I am free
    I am the field on fire


    There is not likely a concrete interpretation of this song; Reznor describes the Not the Actual Events EP as "unfriendly" and "impenetrable."

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