A Perfect Circle: Weak and Powerless Meaning

Song Released: 2003

Download "Weak and Powerless" on MP3:

Download from Amazon MP3
Download from iTunes
Download Ringtone

Weak and Powerless Lyrics

Tilling my own grave to keep me level
Jam another dragon down the hole
Digging to the rhythm and the echo of a solitary siren
One that pushes me along and leaves me so

Desperate and Ravenous
I'm so weak and powerless over you

Someone...

1. 1TOP RATED

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 4th 2006, 12:09 report

   
   

   Tilling my own grave to keep me level = maintaining what will eventually bury him in death. He does this because he believes it's what stabalizes him.
   
   Jam another dragon down the hole = ever heard the saying "chasing the dragon". Well, he's jamming the dragon down the hole. Injecting.
   
   Giving into the solitary siren = he does this alone and it always leaves him weak and powerless
   
   someone feed the monkey = heard the saying "monkey on his or her shoulder"? I think it represents a habit.
   
   While I dig in searh of china = going "down hill". Think where china is in perspective.
   
   White as dracula as I approach the bottom = white as in pale as he goes down hill.
   
   The devil has my ear today... = he doesn't want to hear the bright side. He's not open to it because he believes the devil (or habit) will bring him peace of mind.

   
   
   
   

2. 2TOP RATED

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Apr 28th 2006, 13:29 report

   
   

   I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the last guy's own interpretation was good but not one hundred percent correct. This song is about trying to fill the empty void or "hole" as represented by the hole in the ground. She keeps throwing in what Maynard called "creepy crawlies" to fill the void but she always needed more. This song is about the weakness and emptiness people feel when they are addicted to anything, more specifically drugs. They keep shoving the drugs in and they can never completely fill the void. The hole in the girls stomach was representing the chakras that were empty, all the inner parts that she was now missing because of her addiction. ggkthnks <3.

   
   
   
   

3.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Sep 8th 2011, 07:45 report

   
   

   she kinda reminds me of Sadako from the horrormovie the Ring, but the blond version of it. the way she is crawling around and uses her long creepy fingers and so on.

   
   
   
   

4.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 23rd 2010, 23:33 report

   
   

   This interperatation to me means he is feeding himself with drugs as they envelop him and take him over. Watch the music video it correlates it.

   
   
   
   

5.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jul 20th 2010, 12:32 report

   
   

   it is most obviously about god who is at this point reffered to as an addict and to cave its addiction , humanity is used as a solitary substitute for torture,corrupt & misery ....

   
   
   
   

6.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Jun 6th 2010, 21:24 report

   
   

   Weak and powerless by a perfect circle--
   
   i think this song means that he/she is either in love with someone who doesn't feel the same, and they're lonely and powerless and "desperate" to have the one they love. So they dig themselves deeper into a hole where they try to escape the thoughts of what they can't have.
   
   or it is about a drug addiction, as someone else explained before me.

   
   
   
   

7.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Mar 26th 2010, 14:01 report

   
   

   This song is definitely about drug addiction...when a person is addicted to a drug (opiates or otherwise) they convince themselves to use, even when they don't want to. This makes them weak and powerless. I think Maynard wrote the song to describe his own personal issues, but also to generalize it. In N/A, the idea is no one says which drug they were addicted to, so everyone can relate. I think that's coming across here.

   
   
   
   

8.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Dec 13th 2009, 02:06 report

   
   

   Ok could it be that maybe this song is nothing but nonsense jumbled together to get a rise out of the interpreter?

   
   
   
   

9.  

   anonymous

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5

   click a star to vote

   Aug 30th 2009, 03:44 report

   
   

   Wow. You guys need to understand what a lot of Opiates will do to someones mind and body. Its a secret dark love affair for the rest of your life. Being weak and powerless over your love for what makes you whole again. And by "Jam another dragon down the hole" talking about shooting heroin down the needle. and lets not forget when he comes right out and says it: "Someone feed the monkey while I dig in search of China
   White as Dracula as I approach the bottom." Its a dark love affair, cause we all know how much it kills us. But without it after so long, its all you have come to know and love. Always going back for the "piece of mind
   Whatever just as long as I don't feel so..."
   
   All I can say is this: Unless you have given your life to opiates, there isnt a chance in hell to truely understand or feel what opiates do to a person. These songs of MJK's have multiple meanings, reason is, there is a whole crap load of feelings and information that he has on any 1 subject or point of view, that he has to be a little mysterious. But when he sings of Opiates, you know darn well why.

   
   
   
   

10.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Oct 14th 2008, 18:38 report

    
    

    I do agree with some of the interpretations I've seen so far, but before you make one please note that music can mean anything you want it to... So Maynard could be singing about almost anything. But the interpretation of the lyrics being about drug addiction is very persuasive & likely lol.

    
    
    
    

11.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Sep 2nd 2008, 13:52 report

    
    

    Feed the monkey is to get the monkey off ones back, you know, the saying. To dig to China is not to "score China white" whoever said that, really, that would be too simplified for him to say it like. If you know tool and PC than you would know that, ok...The reptiles and snakes are represented by the serpent. Yes she is supposed to be Eve. She is upset for what she did by forsaken God so she rezents the serpent for how it tricked her so she throws them in the hole to be divoured by the little creatures. The hole in her stomach is there I believe because of what she did and the only way to heal it is to do away with evil, in other terms all the serpents around her in the forest represent the sin she brought upon herself by doing what she was told not to and doing away with them shows that she is doing away with sin , that being the way to heal the hole.... just my interpretation

    
    
    
    

12.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    May 11th 2008, 20:24 report

    
    

    I think the chorus it saying your desperate because you spent all your money and you need to keep going but the only thing left is to steal for whats ever your addiction is. Little angel go away is a friend telling you that you need to stop but you know you won't.

    
    
    
    

13.  

    ShortMama234

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Feb 5th 2008, 18:33 report

    
    

    To me, this song has to do with emptiness. It's like trying to fill a void with useless crap but nothing can pacify the hunger to feel normal. The void can be anything ... Trying to quit drugs ('white as dracula as I approach the bottom') and how the withdrawl symptoms can actually lead to demise.Or maybe it is trying to fill a void after losing someone and how no matter how one might try to keep busy, everything always goes back to that one problem that they haven't dealt with.

    
    
    
    

14.  

    TheBrock

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Dec 8th 2007, 01:48 report

    
    

    Practically the whole album is about drugs or addiction.
    
    I suppose the 13th step is the final step after the 12 step process: Relapse or full recovery.

    
    
    
    

15.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Aug 17th 2007, 20:58 report

    
    

    Agreed. I think this song is about drugs. Never having a drug problem myself but from reading about everything there are too many words he uses that couldn't really mean anything else. China White for example.
    At the same time I think the song can be interpreted in many personal levels. Thats what makes music and lyrics so powerful because it explains emotions and feelings that words cannot explain on their own.
    I don't know if anyone even looks at this page anymore though. Ha

    
    
    
    

16.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jun 21st 2007, 13:03 report

    
    

    Definitely about addiction, more specifically Heroin.
    I don't think he's digging in search of China, I think he's digging in search of China white.

    
    
    
    

17.  

    grantq

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 13th 2007, 13:10 report

    
    

    i am actually in recovery from a previos heroin addiction. I attend 12 step groups, and the 13th step is kindaf a joke, or a truth , about people that have been in recovery, and new commers come in they act as if they can help them ( with sexual motives), to 13th step someone, means to try and get sex or love from a new person that knows nothing about recovery, by misleading them. This happens all the time. Maynard loves to point out the truth behind groups that claim some sort of "moralism" and show their true human nature. Such as the song "the noose", ...... people are stupid... "Im praying for rain","im praying for tidal waves","I wanna see the ground give way", "Iwanna watch it all go down" MOM please flush it all away

    
    
    
    

18.  

    grantq

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Apr 13th 2007, 12:36 report

    
    

    many could misconstrew that Maynard is talking about drugs or alchohol, or any addiction, but this song is touching on being weak and powerless over other people. The void that we all live with, expecially on being alone, paradoxically we are not alone, b/c we have ourselves, but through societal conditioning, we look externally to fill the void of loneliness, and expecially comming off a drug or alchohol addiction, one finds themselves looking towards other people(expecially intimacy) to fill the void of seperation or loniliness. This song, along with all of maynards work touches on a deeper level than most songs. APC does a perfect job expressing this emotion of void, and the hope that someone will come along to fill the void of emptiness, "So weak and powerless" over getting other people to fill this void, and the constant seeking,. THis song is PERFECTLY crafted to explain my own experiance, on a level that I could never express.

    
    
    
    

19.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Nov 18th 2006, 15:58 report

    
    

    ok. Here it is, I've thought about this forever, I think this is it.
    
    tilling my own grave to keep me level= killing himself to keep himself going (in the sense of drugs)
    
    jam another dragon down the hole = injecting, as a previous entry stated, chasing the dragon etc
    
    the drugs push him along but leave him so
    
    desperate and ravenous so weak and powerless over YOU
    (this is almost as if he is personifying drugs, i understand this as they have such power and strength its almost like the are a person)
    
    someone feed the monkey while I dig in search of china (white as dracula as I approach the bottom)=
    this is a play on words.. feed the monkey I believe is feed his addiction, and digs in search of china (downwards) but it is sung "china white" which is heroin.
    and also white signifies his pale state.
    
    "little angel go away come again someother day, the devil has my ear today ill never hear a word you say, promised I would fin a little solice and some peace of mind, whatever just as long as I don't feel so DESPERATE."
    
    little angel is the sober, responsible man in him, that occasionally makes an appearance, but the devil (drugs) has his ear today, and cos of this he will never hear a word you say (theyve taken over)
    
    PROMISED (drug addicts often make meaningless promises) he would find a little solace and some peace of mind, but WHATEVER (what does it matter if he has drugs, if he takes drugs he won't feel so. (just as long as I don't feel so)DESPERATE

    
    
    
    

20.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Nov 7th 2006, 17:33 report

    
    

    China white is a type of heroine, it is about drug addiction. It is not to deep. Just because Maynard is a lyrical genius does not mean all songs are oh so deep.

    
    
    
    

21.  

    anonymous

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Sep 3rd 2006, 16:31 report

    
    

    I read this on an article with Maynard, he said thirteenth step meant the 13 years he's gone through this little journey of his in the music biz, but you don't have to take my word on it. I think the magazine was revolver I just remember Maynard being bald with a bomb strapped to him, also he might have been naked I can't remember

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
    
    
    
    

22.  

    Kinyin

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5

    click a star to vote

    Jun 27th 2006, 18:55 report

    
    

    I believe this song is about feelings.
    You know what is right for you, but you make up reasons to make your motives right.
    (little angel go away, come again some other day, the devil has my ear today, I'll never hear a word you say, promise I would find a little sollice and some piece of mind, whatever just as long as I don't feel so, desperate and ravenous)