Slipknot: Sulfur Meaning

Song Released: 2009

Sulfur Lyrics

My Guilt and My Shame always sell me short - always feel the same
And My Face and My Soul always wear me thin - always under control
But the longest hours you’ll have in your life
Are the ones you sit through to know if you’re right
So...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jun 12th 2013 !⃝

   I don't know much about these lyrics to decipher the verse that much, even though i"ve listened to it over a million times.
   
   But i did catch something in the chorus,
   "Stay, you don't always no where you stand"
   Like Corey telling us, not to commit suicide.
   If we feel worthless, shitty and have suicidal thoughts, he wants us to know that we don't know who the hell we are, that's merely our perception of ourselves AT THAT MOMENT.
   
   "Till you know that you won't runaway" Till we know that we are strong enough to face it, and stay alive.
   
   "There's something inside me that feels like breathing in sulfur" There's reasons for me to kill myself and my thoughts and logic justify that constant notion of suicide. It feels like its the right thing to do. In the bible it says that hell smelled of Sulfur, and if you commit suicide, a mortal sin, you're soul is supposed to descend to hell.
   
   If you notice the first two lines of the chorus he is speaking to someone, while the last line he talks about himself, he's trying to tell listeners that he's been there to and know's how it feels to want to die. And if you're someone who has that notion, you know that you cant really justify either side, and one of Slipknot's messages to fans is to endure pain and better yourself, cuz' they've all been through shit and look at them now.
   
   Also to further my theory, the songs were written in 2006- 2008 right? So in that era lots of bands were coming out with songs about not killing yourself and being strong. Knowing Corey's skill and all the shit he's been through during and after Vol.3 this song was about how he didn't want to kill himself, and how he was trying to better himself, which he did.
2. anonymous

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   Jul 29th 2016 !⃝

   I believe its about facing your fears standing up to someone you'd usually back down to breathing sulfur is the butterfly feeling you get in your stomach
3. anonymous

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   Jun 8th 2014 !⃝

   He thinks his wife is having an affair. These are his thoughts as he waits to confront her, or something to prove if she is or not. The apprehension is killing him, and he can hardly breathe. He wants to run away and not find out, but has made up his mind to see this through. In the third verse, his fears are confirmed and he feels something very similar to what he felt waiting for the news.

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

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   Apr 21st 2014 !⃝

   My interpretation is that you are trying to beat/overcome people who bring you down, to prove that you are better than them. However, it is proving difficult to stop believing the soul-crushing things those people are saying, you are almost unable to break away from the negativity (hence the breathing in sulfur), the fight is difficult.
5. anonymous

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   Jan 7th 2013 !⃝

   It's about feeling the smoke in yourthroat. Maybe there's no meaning at all maybe they just needed to get the lyrics out of their fucking head

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. Whitie910

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   Jan 5th 2013 !⃝

   In my interpretation, its about finding where you belong in society despite the pain it my cause.
   "You don’t always know where you stand ‘til you know that you won’t run away
   There’s something inside me that feels like Breathing in Sulfur"
   
   "And the longest hours I’ve had in my life were the ones I went through to know I was right"
   It took a while to figure himself out but he finally knows where he belongs.
7. anonymous

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   Jul 20th 2011 !⃝

   Its kind of a reflection of where i am at the moment, i probably feel the best i have in years, not only health-wise, but as a person. The last 3 years have been an awakening for me. Im standing up for my morals, standing up for myself, but the flip side to that coin is that there is always something inside of me thats going to make people feel like theyre chewing on tin foil. For most of my life, i tended to base my opinion on myself by what people thought of me. As i got stronger, i learned to be happy in my own skin and accept that there are these fucked up things about me.
   
   www.slipknot-metal.com
8. anonymous

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   Apr 15th 2011 !⃝

   I think this song is about when you keep your eyes open, know way too much about the things around you, and thanks to this you have great control over the events, you're in safe so much, but this blocks you from going into a lot of situations, when you know there could be a bad outcome. It's about the power and protection that information gives, but also the drawbacks.
   
   "My guilt and my shame
   Always sell me short, always feel the same
   And my face and my soul
   Always wear me thin, always under control"
   
   When something bad happens you knew that it may happen, but you kept the information's hidden (if it could've been just oil to the fire), you feel terrible guilt. Also, when you encounter a situation when you know a possible bad outcome, you retreat, and rather become ashamed in front of others by playing coward with ridiculous excuses, than explaining them your reasons. With these things, you keep your real emotions inside, others never know you knew something before, or that you have a very strong reason to not to do something.
   
   
   "But the longest hours you'll have in your life
   Are the ones you sit through to know if you're right
   So I'll wait but I pray that I'm wrong
   Because I think I know what's going on"
   
   When something serious happens with no explanation but you know something suspicios about it, you assemble an often dark picture in your mind, and you know that it may be the truth. Later, when you gain additional information, or events happen, that could lead to prove your theory, you feel nervous waiting for the moment of the truth.
   
   
   "So let me get this straight
   The only will is my own
   I do whatever I want and stay alone
   All my decisions make it untouchable and tainted"
   
   Here in the song you start to expose the real yourself to someone.
   It's about that you have enough power (knowledge) to control everything around you, if you want something to happen then it will happen soon, and if you really decide something noone will be able to override it.
   
   
   
   "I'm gonna suffer for the rest of my life
   But I will always find a way to survive
   I'm not a failure but I know what it's like
   I can take it or leave it or die"
   
   You will always suffer under the weight of your knowledge, because something you know prevents you to be really yourself in the most of the situations, you see a lot of possible danger in the world, so you miss a lot of chances rather than taking the risk. It's not cowardice, because you know very strong reasons to not to do something, you previously may learned from the mistakes of others in the same situation, or you know yourself enough to know that you have a bigger chance of failing, than succeeding, and you know in that situation failing will be fatal. But the other side of this is that you always know enough to safely escape from extreme situations, and rarely you may know that a certain danger may not apply to you, and you can take some very risky thing with no real risk. You don't consider your life a failure, becuase you always know your opportunities and always have a wide range of choices, but as explained above, you often rather fail smaller things in exchange for not risking the failing of bigger things.
   
   "Stay, you don't always know where you stand
   Till you know that you won't run away
   There's something inside me that feels
   Like breathing in sulfur"
   
   It's the unleashing of the real yourself again, giving advise to someone else to reconsider things, and decide only after that, because you know something important, and it may cause problems if that someone decides too hastily, ignoring the information you know. At that time, you feel something strange, you feel your hidden emotions breaking out.
   
   "My life is undone
   And I'm a sinner to most but a sage to some
   And my Gods are untrue
   I'm probably wrong but I'm better than you"
   
   It's about that your life may be fucked up, and most could think that you're wrong, but you know that you made your choices considering everything at the moment, trying to get the best out of the bad situations, and the most secure out of the unsure situations. You are better than the person you talk to, because he/she may have a better life, but could had even better by making more deliberate decisions.
   
   "And the longest hours I've had in my life
   Were the ones I went through to know I was right
   So I'm safe but I'm a little outside
   I'm gonna laugh when I'm buried alive"
   
   Now you tell, that you guessed the truth right in a lot of cases, you have so much knowledge and done a lot of things to be safe in more and more previously dangerous situations, but you feel you became distant from others. Also, you tell that there's a lot of things that others still don't know about you, and you will laugh when they will falsely think that you're in some big trouble, but actually at that time things will be completely under your control.

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