I've always thought the Generator was like the Tao of Taoism. The lifeless, formless void from which all things grow. Something that you can know with all of your heart, mind, brain, penis, etc. but that you just can't quite put your finger on no matter how hard you try. It's slippery like that.

Tao Te Ching - Chapter 1

To me "the flower" represents happiness, "the window" is regret, "the ugly laughing man" is god and refers to the possibility that he is not the kind deity that people think he is but rather a man, drunk with power that likes to fuck with us.

To me, the silent "Humming"bird is a contradiction referring to the bible as being full of contradictions. "The bloody door" is a story in the bible where the Jews enslaved under pharaoh in Egypt painted lamb's blood on their door so Gods 10th plague(death of first born) would pass them.

"Washing me clean refers to the washing away of sins in baptism. "The actors" aren't used to their full potential in a photo. "The hammer" is to break the window and get the flower, thus achieving happiness. The knife is to kill the mocking god.

Generator can mean as a word God. This is because he is the One who Generated life the One who created everything.In French Generateur means exactly God.

I think a universal interpretation is that the generator is God, or in my personal opinion, religion as a whole. It's something that cant be controlled, made or destroyed; it is in all aspects of life, death and seemingly the afterlife. The "ugly laughing man" is the man religious people see as the sinner, the unsaved, unholy man.

To me this song is a revisitation and expansion on the theme of the song Bad Religion.

There are barriers to our experiencing and knowing life ("the window blocking the flower, the hummingbird in silence, magazines showing you what life should be, etc"). It all keeps you from viewing life. We don't all know what's going on nor can we see what causes it ("a bone under my skin, actors in a photograph, a paper in the wind"). But instead of just accepting that the window will be there that the turbine must be in darkness, and that the bone must never be seen we can break our presuppositions and get to the real world ("a hammer to break the window, we can see the bone in our arm, we can act and leave the actors behind").

Finally (though it references the beginning of the song) is the statement that no matter the unquestioning world we will go on (I'll remain unperturbed by the joy and the madness that I encounter everywhere I turn). Just how I see it and since no-one mentioned it yet I thought I would.

The window is used to show how there is a barrier between everything that we would like to get to, such as the flower, beauty. We must use "the hammer" to break through the barrier (window) and get to the flower. perhaps the ugly laughing man is one of the few in life who can enjoy things that others cannot due to being born into a certain lifestyle. once inside, the knife, must be used to kill the ugly laughing man, thus we can finally reach the flower.

I think the Generator is a metaphor for the impersonal energy of all existence. The Brahman. The Generator is the cycling energy of life. It knows no one, and nothing. The Generator is the cosmos, and your heartbeat. It is the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make up all of life and death ("like a rock, like a planet, like a fucking atom bomb.....like turbines in darkness").

The Generator is a state of awareness found within the individual. I think the entire song is about transcending the mythologies you were socially conditioned to believe are real. It is about enlightenment.

So if Generator is about transcendence then the song makes total sense. "There's a flower behind the window, there's an ugly laughing man" - The flower resembles beauty, truth, awareness. There's an ugly laughing man. This is God, well to narrow it down from the thousands of gods man has created, Yahweh.

Later in the song the window is referenced, again, with a hammer. Symbolic to breaking the glass to get to the flower. "There's a knife on the floor" - Kill what is blocking the window. God. A reference to Nietzsche?

"Wash me clean and I will run until I reach the shore" - This is psychological. Wash away everything you were taught and you will reach Truth.

"I've seen it all before, in books and magazines" - the advertisement of religion. "I've known it all along like the bone under my skin" - This is the universal truth that has been jaded by belief. And a beautiful quote from Guatama. A belief in anything is a substitute for truth.

To me, Generator does not have one single idea, but a collection of ideas brought together. The main theme is perhaps illustrated in the line "I'll remain unperturbed by the joy and the madness that I encounter everywhere I turn." It is saying that all the joy and beauty in the world cannot be appreciated entirely, because there is a force (the madness or the generator) restricting us from enjoying it. The force of the generator is: the Atomic bomb which tarnishes the beautiful planet. The death after the last twitch of life. The disgusting pollution which has made our once beautiful oceans 'as filthy as pornography'. The glass stopping us from feeling the lovely textures of the flower right in front of us. The silence restricting us from hearing the joyous voice of the hummingbird. The ugly appearance of the man experiencing the joy of laughter. The actors who are depicting reality falsely in a photograph. The brutal men who killed innocent babies in the search for Jesus. (See Like the blood on my door).

The Generator is not a person or a thing, it refers to nature (and in some cases the unstoppable nature of the human race) and its mysterious ways. At times seeming to have a purpose or a reason; and at times appearing to have no reason - just working randomly. It almost looks like song author Gurewitz is trying to understand why this force is in place, and why we cannot see it working. We can see the paper blowing in the wind, but we cannot see the force moving it. We can hear the turbine in darkness creating energy, and we know it is creating energy but we cannot see it.

I think generator is about God, because it says things like "Like actors in a photograph" and "like a hummingbird in silence". These are things that can't show their full beauty, and are hidden from the world. No-one really understands God and he isn't given enough 'respect' and consideration.

The "wash me clean and i will run until i reach the shore" could be to do with Moses and the red sea, or it could be something to do with murderers etc. asking God for forgiveness. The blood on the door bit, I think, shows that if people took more notice of God then there wouldn't be such bad things happening in the world.

What I could figure out is that the generator is this big machine surrounding us, making our everyday life go like it does. He seems to have accepted the fact that there is this huge thing around us, sort of controlling us but at the same time, he's scared. But there's nothing he can do about it.

The 'Generator' could be a metaphor for God. In the words of Brett:
'The vibe that I'm trying to give is like, if you've ever been in a room and the air conditioner's humming. You don't notice it, of course, because it's a constant hum. Then it turns off and you suddenly notice how quiet it is because it went away. That's the generator; it's just behind everything. It's funny, God and spirituality has been the central conflict of my entire life.' 'It's a song about my concept of god (...) the hammer, window, knife etc. are prose and I don't feel it's appropriate to give you my personal intention, although like any art there is a definite 'meaning' I'm trying to convey. If Generator makes you feel something when you listen to it real loud than chances are you understand it just fine.'

According to Brett: "'The Generator' is a metaphor for God."