4th century BC
Plato
- Idealism — forms over particulars
- The Republic ethic: “God is not the author of evil”
Notes
Track thirteen is the closer, and it is the most autobiographical song on the album - this one is straight out of my own teenage bedroom. I had a chart on my bedroom wall when I was sixteen. I had the centuries color-coded, and I knew the order of the beasts. The Hal Lindsey paperbacks, The Late Great Planet Earth dog-eared from re-reading, the flannelgraph beasts, the rapture marked in red ink. That was me. I believed all of it.
The second verse is the slow disappointment - the dates that kept slipping. Eighty-eight. Ninety-three. The Y2K rapture. The blood moons. The Jubilee year somebody calculated. Horizon after horizon, and the chart on the wall kept slipping, like a calendar that wouldn't sit still. A man can spend years reading the news with a highlighter before he starts to wonder whether the whole grid was wrong.
And then the closer does what a closer should - it answers the album's opening line. Ditch the Garbage! began with I don't have a name for it yet. This song ends with the name found. One day the chart literally fell off the wall, and I just stopped putting it back up. In the bare wall the truth finally showed: the Anointed One was cut off in the middle of the week, not two thousand years later. The cross was the middle of one history. Not seven dispensations stacked like floors, not the church as a parenthesis - one Author, one cross at the middle. The chart came down when the cross took its place. And the wall is enough.
Lyrics
[Intro]
I had a chart on my bedroom wall
When I was sixteen
I had the centuries color-coded
And I knew the order of the beasts
[Verse 1]
I had The Late Great Planet Earth in paperback
I had the cover dog-eared from re-reading
I had There's a New World Coming
With the underlining in green and yellow
I had the cassette tapes from the prophecy conference
I had the flannelgraph beasts from Sunday school
Bear and leopard and lion with wings
And the little horn with the eyes
I had the dates marked on the kitchen calendar
And the cross-referenced study Bible
With the columns down the side
And the rapture in red ink
[Pre-Chorus]
And I waited for the trumpet
And I waited for the catching-up
And I waited for the seven years
And I waited for the antichrist
And I read the news with a highlighter
And every headline was the sign
[Chorus]
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
Color-coded centuries and a date that kept moving
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
Seventy weeks split across two thousand years
And the rapture in red ink waiting to land
[Verse 2]
It was supposed to happen in eighty-eight
Someone wrote a book with eighty-eight reasons
Then it was supposed to happen in ninety-three
Then it was the millennium turnover, the Y2K rapture
Then the blood moons, the four lunar eclipses
Then the Jubilee year somebody calculated
Then the Israel restoration, then the Temple Mount stones
Then the next horizon, then the next horizon, then the next horizon
And the chart on the wall kept slipping
Like a calendar that wouldn't sit still
[Pre-Chorus]
And I waited for the trumpet
And I waited for the catching-up
And I started to wonder if the trumpet was a metaphor
And I started to wonder if the catching-up was already done
And the chart on the wall got smaller every year
Until I couldn't read the colors anymore
[Chorus]
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
Color-coded centuries and a date that kept moving
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
Seventy weeks split across two thousand years
And the rapture in red ink waiting to land
[Verse 3]
One day the chart slipped off the wall
It just fell
I didn't take it down
I just stopped putting it back up
And the wall was bare
And in the bareness I saw what I had been missing
The Anointed One was cut off
In the middle of the week
Not two thousand years later
The cross was the middle
The cross was the middle of one history
The cross was the chart
And the wall stayed bare
[Bridge]
Not seven dispensations stacked like floors
Not the seventy weeks split across two millennia
Not the church a parenthesis in a bigger plan
One history
One Author
One cross at the middle
And the Author is writing toward His own face
And the chart came down
And the wall is enough
[Final Chorus]
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
Came down when the cross took its place
The chart on the wall
The chart on the wall
The cross was the middle the whole time
And the Author is writing toward His face
And the rapture in red ink was always just the cross
Always just the cross
[Outro]
The chart came down
The chart came down
The cross was the middle
The cross was the middle
The chart came down
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