Inspiration
Shadows and the songwriting crew drew heavily from Biblical literature, history, and old literature, including, as previously mentioned, segments of the Book of Revelation, as well as Dante's Divine Comedy of Hell. Historically, the sexually deviant queen of Babylon provided the basis for the song, as well as the recurring theme of sexual temptation in the music video.
The seven headed beast with 10 horns, which is referred to many times in the song, is the anti-Christ. Since Babylon collapsed, ("fallen now is Babylon the great") presumably because of its moral deficiencies, it can be assumed that Dante and Shadows were correct.
The black tar which represents the departed soul in the corrupted victims in the video is derived from Dante's 5th Malebolge in Hell. The demons wreck the sinners (in that case, those who betrayed the church) with hooked spears.
Read more about this topic: Beast And The Harlot
Famous quotes containing the word inspiration:
“As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognise the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)