shiva comes from the hebrew word for seven. shiva is the first seven days of mourning. in the jewish tradition, you pray, abstain from work and school and cooking and bathing. it's a time for being with your community and celebrating the person's life all together.
Lyrics: Suddenly every machine stopped at once, and the monitors beeped the last time. Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds, and all of them empty but mine. Well, I was lying down with my feet in the air, completely unable to move. The bed was misshapen, and awkward and tall, and clearly intended for you. You checked yourself out when you put me to bed, and tore that old band off your wrist. But you came back to see me for a minute or less, and left me your ring in my fist. My hair started growing, my face became yours, my femur was breaking in half. The sensation was scissors and too much to scream, so instead, I just started to laugh. Suddenly every machine stopped at once, and the monitors beeped the last time. Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds, and all of them empty but mine.
for some reason i always presumed the title referred to the hindu god shiva. but now i'm learning about judaism and hopefully starting my conversion process i've realised this is about shiva, the week after a loved one dies. i love this song sm and now i'm connected to it even more.
The title could indeed be related to Shiva, god of destruction. In the album's timeline this song represents finally the arrival of death. Shiva arrives and the ill patient finally passes away with the shutting down of the machines, the end of the relationship.
honestly i feel like it works as both, and im not sure how intentional that is on the part of whoever named it but i like to view it that way. loss and grief as destruction just works so well, especially since by this point in the album the patient has destroyed everything else in the worker's life
*You checked yourself out when you put me to bed* *and you tore that old band off your wrist* *but you came back to see me for a minute or less* *and left me your ring in my fist* *my hair started growing, my face became yours* ik the overarching story of this album, but... god damn. My mom has MS and started showing symptoms when I was very young. There's something not just about watching someone, yknow, suffer and slowly die at the ripe age of 8, and being mentally prepared for their funeral by the age of ten- but it's a whole other beast when you're just waiting for it to come for you next. It's weird, growing up with a woman who talks so earnestly about her death and it's inevitability and having this little thought in the back of your mind that you'd never mention to her or else it'd make her upset- a thought that she's probably talking about you, too.
