I always thought it was about someone with schizophrenia.

this song is about smoking cigarettes.

Just had to add that the last several times I listened to this song it has reminded me of the narrator's home in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which he illuminates with 1,369 light bulbs to steal power from the electric company and to help counteract the feeling that whenever he goes out in the city he is "invisible" to the rest of society as an individual because he is a black man. The lyric about building a compartment illuminated by a million little suns, and place tinfoil on the floor and the walls sounds like a very powerful reference to the narrator's experience in that book. Good book recommendation for BR fans, of course.

The friend he's talking about only kept it in his pocket; it gave him hope, but by time it just flickered out (that's not very noticeable) and so he died, as he lost this motivation and the "feeling he could buck the system". To me the first verse also shows how important it is to light this huge fire of hope and motivation.

I don't know if there are other Germans around here, but this song always reminds of the end of the novel "Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher" ("city of the dreaming books") by Walter Moers, when a man whose skin is covered with paper, which incends when hit by sunrays, chooses to burn out in the end by stepping into the light instead of living the rest of his life alone in the darkness under the city.

I read somewhere that Brett wrote the song after seeing some band produce a rock record in a room with romantic light, just candles and such. He then turned on the lights in the room, because he thought that there should not be something comforting and sense-dulling like that to writing rock. He then wrote this song with this incident in mind.

The song therefore is a about what Kurt Cobain prominently summarized in "It's better to burn out than to fade away!". A rebel or someone who wants to provoke should try to be bright and widely seen. He should be outspoken and loud, be noticeable and make himself heard. He should try everything to reach that goal. Therefore the lines in which the protagonist of the song takes it way to far with drawing attention to him ("I'll install upon the roof on my compartment and place tinfoil on my floor and on my walls").

Of course the song also plays with the idea of being enlightened (in the meaning Kant gave it). It is better to be a bright (literally and figuratively) person than to be a dimwit.

Another rebel theme that is seen here and in many other punk rock songs is that it is worthwhile to carry out this attitude to the extreme. It is not worth living without trying to be bright/enlightened/aware of things ("when it flickered out we laid him down to die") and therefore this attitude should followed until the bitter end. (" I'll burn relentlessly until my juice runs dry")

This song is about the urge to be different, to break free of the system and truly live. I feel this analysis is confirmed by the "and I'll burn like a roman fucking candle" line, as it bears a striking resemblances to a line from Jack Kerouac's work (one talking about society's outcasts);"the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

This song is, I think, about motivation. When the friend touches the candle he's thinking of the reason he's doing things. After his motivation is gone, he kills himself. Brett is saying in the song "So I'll get myself some motivation, a big goal, or a lot of little goals" as shown by "And equip it with just a million tiny suns". "Then I'll burn like a Roman fucking candle, like a chasm in the night, for a minuscule duration, ecstatic immolation, incorrigible delight" is stating that for the short while he has the motivation, he'll be as happy as ever and will not mind sacrifice if it is to fulfill his purpose because he at the very least has a purpose.

I think that this shows how the candle gave hope, and when it went out the 'friend' had none and so died. The second verse reminds me of the temple of Yad Vashem in Israel where one candle is reflected to remember the lives of all of the Jews killed in the Holocaust. The light turned on in this song could be to remember the 'friends' life, or to remember the unnecessary deaths of others.

This song would seem to express the desire to escape the status quo, not with an alternative in mind, but simply in a rush of emotion. The possibility that this act may even be self-destructive is acknowledged, ('ecstatic immolation') but the desire is still there. Note the use of future tense, suggesting that the speaker is contemplating this 'act', which lends an air of longing to the song. A state of content and happiness, the lyrics also suggest, can only be experienced for a short time and may involve sacrificing something of significance. ('When it flickered out, we laid him down to die.')