Disturbed: Down with the Sickness Meaning

Song Released: 2000

Down with the Sickness Lyrics

Can you feel that?
Ah shit

Drowning deep in my sea of loathing
Broken your servant I kneel
(Will you give in to me?)
It seems what's left of my human side
Is slowly changing in me
(Will you give in to me?)

Looking at my own...

1. anonymous

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   Mar 1st 2007 !⃝

   OK first of all disturbed never even wrote this song it is a song from around the 50s or 60s. It was played by a jazz band. Disturbed just remade it into a rock song and claimed it as their own. Some real artist.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
2. anonymous

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   Nov 26th 2006 !⃝

   if anyone ever listened to the live version of this song u'll notice that at the beginning there's an adzan (a call for muslims in time for prayer), which BTW is recited incorrectly, followed by a voice saying "ladies nad gentlemen, boys and girls dying time is here". I've been wanting to know what David's real intentions were in doing that. Is he trying to "emphasise" something?
3. anonymous

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   Nov 6th 2006 !⃝

   I read a review in which David is quoted as having said the song is indeed about "mother culture." note the song "welcome burden" (the face of our mother culture is sickening). The sickness is simply part of humanity, and an unavoidably heritable trait. Looking back through history, how many countless people have been "down with the sickness?" as society becomes more oppressive and restrictive, the natural human desire for autonomy and control eventually breaks through. Revolutionaries throughout the ages have demonstrated this as they have been catalysts for a myriad of radical social reforms. As dave said himself, the song is primarily allegorical.
4. RollingStone

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   Oct 21st 2006 !⃝

   By the way, everybody is anonymous, why?
   
   Is it because you're chubby and fat? (will and grace)
   
   peace out!
5. RollingStone

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   Oct 21st 2006 !⃝

   By the way, if capitalism hasn't improved his life, then he's actually red, which I applaud. Go go red front:-p
   
   come on, he hates materialism, he gotta be ready for the red baloon... Now I know this is americano... And communism failed and all, but I gotta see it as a testament to workers and the benefit of sharing.
   
   You got 100 dollars and wanna share, whom do you give it to? Govenment or closest friends? Either way, its given to the public. Greed is capitalism, and sharing is communism?
   
   Go reds!

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. RollingStone

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   Oct 21st 2006 !⃝

   Speaking of which, when did he become charity incorporated?
   
   Music is money, and he'll get his fair share... Talking about mother society gotta be a joke from him, unless he did it pro bono.
   
   In which case I salute, but otherwise, he's spilling his guts out!
   
   Gods speed!
7. RollingStone

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   Oct 21st 2006 !⃝

   Mother culture??? Please specify!
   
   You mean taking care of the poor and sick? And having everybody get a chance in life?
   
   Mother culture? To show some emotions? I'm baffled!
   
   Please specify!
   
   Gods speed!

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
8. anonymous

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   Oct 5th 2006 !⃝

   According to another lyric meaning website, "the sickness" is any difference from society's high and mighty standards, the abusive mother is a metaphor for society rejecting "the sickness" and trying to "beat" and ridicule the difference out of everyone else so that all people are the same. Getting "down with the sickness" is accepting difference in others and david screaming at the abusive mother is also a metaphor for people getting sick and tired of society and beating the mother down. Eventually all humans will see through the facade of perfection that the capitalist society has set for us and tear through it, killing the mother as david seems to when he says "here it comes get ready to die!"
9. RollingStone

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   Sep 28th 2006 !⃝

   Talking about abuse.
   I think he's talking from a personal perspective, no matter what he says.
   Abuse, or not... He touches the abusee's feelings, albeit with the hate aspect clearly visible...
   What to do other than react? I find it an expression of the thoughts related to abuse, and what repercussions it has.
   He sounds like a boy, torn between thought - action, hate - love, the evident two possibilities... The sickness lies in the ambivalence... You know its wrong, but the love is still there... Wicked
   
   peace out!
10. anonymous

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    Aug 31st 2006 !⃝

    (this is the guy who said it's about his mother abusing david) o ok thanks man, I'll keep that in mind I guess I kindof got carried away, lol
11. anonymous

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    Aug 26th 2006 !⃝

    Dick cheese is making fun of songs by singing them to elevator music you dumbass.
12. anonymous

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    Aug 20th 2006 !⃝

    Ummm not really dude above, he actually mentioned on the disturbed M.O.L. [meaning of life] dvd that down with the sickness was about the mother culture and society as to what most of the other users has said and how the mother culture has beaten down society yes I know because I met him back in September in town during a concert so I would know kay thanks :)
13. anonymous

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    Aug 2nd 2006 !⃝

    Ok...Whats all this crap about society??? Its about how David's mother used to abuse him ase a child!!! Like at the end of the song, David sings all the stuff like no mommy don't do it again ill be a good boy I promise why don't you just f%$# up and die! And so on. Cuz (and I'm serious about this) David's mother abused him as a child, period.
14. nirvanarules

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    Jul 27th 2006 !⃝

    The song is about his mother and how she use to abuse him and stuff that's why that one part when he is yelling at her and cursing at her the name then when he says down with the sickness it means she has turned him into an animal because he has all this rage against her
15. Spen

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    Jun 18th 2006 !⃝

    Richard cheese does parodies in a lounge style. Didn't his name give it away also. whats short for Richard? put it with his last name....

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