Song Interpretation & Analysis

Chimaera (Greg Graffin, 1992)

You (a creator deity) took a time bomb
And a case of crackers
And you made a maelstrom of organic debris.
(a reference to the Big Bang)
Then you took a work bench
And a rusty anvil
And you polished them for everyone to see.
(Evolution. Rough starts, crude tools, getting better over time, hence the term “polished”.)

You have created an unhealthy monster,
(If we assign responsibility of man to a deity, the work is far from impressive. Anyone could’ve done better.)
Yet you're nowhere but nowhere to be found,
(For someone who’s supposed to care so much where the fuck are you?)
So I guess I'll just cope with my provisions
(All I got is all I got, you sure as fuck aren’t helping, so I’m just gonna have to make do.)
From now until the day they lay me down.
(This is permanent, I’m convinced you ain’t ever gonna show up.)

You took a baboon
And made him perfect,
(The evolution of man from primates.)
You took a lion
And stripped him of his pride.
(The lion isn’t a king, he’s a biological accident, and has no basis to consider itself special or privileged. The proud lion is also a veiled metaphor to Homo sapiens.)
Then you took a million more varieties,
A scalpel and a sartory,
And you stitched up a horrible surprise.
(If you, creator deity, did this, you’ve done some fuckered up shit.)

You have created an unsocial monster
(Man)
Yet you're searched for all over the globe,
(Everyone’s looking, no one’s finding shit)
And most believe that things would sure be better
If you'd come down here and tell us what you know.
(Simple fools of a theistic bent, and people afraid of being alone, think if the “Great Mind” behind all of this took a holiday or working vacation here and explained it all, the reasoning, things would make sense, and might even improve.)

Who is to blame for this?
Someone tell me please.
(Who do I point the finger at?)
His handiwork is flawed
And it's there for all to see.
(This supposedly “perfect” “creation”, it’s screwed up, and that’s more than obvious to anyone willing to take an objective look around.)
Mutations, aberrations and blatant anomalies,
(The accidents and happenstances that drive biological evolution.)
They multiply and give rise to this... monstrosity.
(Man, and life in general.)

You took the most abundant smallest bits of matter
(Atoms. Adam’s Atoms?)
And you instilled them with affinity,
(Gave them meaning.)
And then you stratified accumulations,
Weeded out bad variations
Blended up your unique recipe.
(Evolution discarded the unnecessary and what didn’t work.)

You have created a powerful monster
(Man, unlike the impotent deity the song refers to.)
With direction and purpose all its own,
(He has created his own direction and purpose.)
And if you were here,
Would things be any different?
(Could you really change anything?)
Or are you just a mosaic of thoughts alone?
(Or do you not exist and are nothing more than a composite of people’s thoughts and opinions?)

I remember a guy saying he thought the song was about Watchmen, I don't think so, but it kinda made sense.

I have two similar takes on this. The first is the idea that there are so many explanations for species, and yet people still assert that a god is reponsible for species. The second is a comment on the idea of Intelligent Design, that god somehow created all these explanations for species, but we don't seem to not only find the god anywhere, but we also see that the human race is so flawed that any god claiming responsibility for it would surely be worthy of ridicule.

I think the songs title is a metaphor for God in Greg's eye. The term chimaera has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy, hard to believe.

IMO the inference that the song makes is that Creationist thinking is fundamentally flawed. It's a story that basically thumbs its nose at the notion of the existence of God. It's like really God made the Earth, the heavens and stars? The "maelstrom of organic debris" refers to how the universe started (see Big Bang theory). Now if God were able to do that and create man surely he would have done a better job. "you have created an unhealthy monster yet you're nowhere but nowhere to be found" As if to say look at how fucked up the planet & human race can be. We are a paltry example of what a all powerful being would create given our shortcomings as a species. And if God does exist surely he would have been much more careful in our creation or active in a world full of such pain & suffering. "who is to blame for this someone tell me please his handy work is flawed and it's there for all to see" Then he has a challenge for God at the end of the song, saying that mankind has now evolved in a manner that possibly wasn't intended. And if God is real maybe he could come do something about it. However, since God is a collection of stories and people's fear of the unknown there's nothing he can do! "you have created a powerful monster with a direction and purpose all its own and if you were here would things be any different or are you just a mosaic of thoughts alone?

To me there are a number of very direct lines to show this song is about God, or more accurately, people's vision of their giant invisible cloud father, and making a mockery of it in a very stylish way.
This song is intended to show us that if god exists, he's made some poor errors in creating us. Why wouldn't he create something better?

"And most believe that things would sure be better, if you'd come down here and tell us what you know" - that would save us a whole bunch of angst.

"Weeded out bad variations" - good explanation for this crackpot theory of evolution.

"With direction and purpose all of its own" - Greg's reminding us that man has a direction of its own. Of our own. We are masters of our own destiny and we're not following anybody else's will. Greg says this despite the whole song playing out under the assumption god is real. He quickly follows this line with the question 'are you real?' ("just a mosaic of thoughts alone" - stylish)

If any of you have read a good amount of Kurt Vonnegut, you will recognize this as an address to the anonymous Creator of the Universe. The message is "Well, whenever you are, you created a monster and gave it life. Awesome."

My take is that this is against all of those scientists playing god, making clones and splicing DNA, not stopping until they have gone too far.

"You have created a powerful monster / With direction and purpose all its own / And if you were here / Would things be any different? /Or are you just a mosaic of thoughts alone?" is obviously directed to god.

I think this song is similar to the Frankenstein movie. It's like you take parts from different organisms and sew it together. And then you realize you've created a monster.
But then the monster is on the loose but the creator is nowhere to be found.

This song is about God, wanted to make a perfect world, but he just creates a horrible monster (the human). Man doesn't listen to God; he has a will of his own. God's recipe for perfection has a negative effect on mankind; they start to wonder if God even exists.

A "Chimaera" is an organism produced through an artificial combination of genes. While surely the song is meant to address God, (come down here, etc.) there are multiple allusions to parallels between the act of God creating the world and the act of a human creating or altering an organism through manipulation of its genes.

This is a direct criticism to God. He points out all the flaws in God's creations, wonders why he doesn't come down and make everything right, and even challenges whether or not God exists or if he's just 'composed of empty thoughts.'

A couple of different interpretations of my own:
- the "case of crackers" could be firecrackers (US word for fireworks) which combine with the time bomb to form the big bang.

-In my opinion, "you took a baboon, and made him perfect, you took a lion and stripped him of his pride" might refer to humans having the intelligence of a baboon and the ferocity/brutality of a lion (without the latter's honor - the 'pride', which means the social structure of the lion as well as the obvious meaning).

- "you took the most abundant smallest bits of matter, and you instilled them with affinity" I believe this line refers to chemical bonding.

I think that Chimeara is about God (or a God) who has created the human race. It's saying that he's created us (and we're a horrible mistake and an amalgam of things that shouldn't be) and now we don't even know if he exists, "you have created an unhealthy monster, but you're nowhere to be found." Then it's about how people (religious people at least) believe if God was on Earth and he showed us how to live then everything would be better ("if you'd come down here and show us what you know"). Then at the end it questions Gods existence with 'are you just a mosaic of thoughts alone'.

It's about people playing god: "you took a baboon and made him perfect, you took a lion and stripped him of his pride." Everything we eat has been modified in some way. Livestock are injected, pets are perfected, whether it's genetic or through a selective process 'man' -humans have had an impact on many other (apparent) species. Also having to do with a god-type figure who is just a 'mosaic of thoughts alone' somehow approving all our moves.