In the ongoing travelogue of Scarlet's Walk, the protagonist reaches the state of Delaware.
The song is preceded by Your Cloud and is followed, significantly, by I can't see New York. This is my take on the story it tells], much aided by the Scarlet's Walk Bio.
a change of course in
Our direction
a dash of truth
spread thinly
Like a flag
on a popstar
On her search for truth, Scarlet meets a self-styled prophet who seems to have taken advantage of the vacuum felt after 9/11. As you will recall, a strong wave of anti-Muslim sentiment and a "return to patriotic values" flowed through American society at the time. A perfect time for a new messianic figure to climb up on the soap-box and spread his message, nicely wrapped in his image.
Inflated with power, the preacher seems to have lost all his former idealism, catering instead to the lowest emotions of the masses. Few protest against this, but Scarlet does. She's seen too much of the world to see it as all black and white. We, her fellow travellers, should know who is the wiser one of the two.
I believe in defending
in what we once
stood for
It seems in vogue
to be a closet
misogynist homophobe
The song seems to be a bit of a reprimanding speech from Scarlet, and the conflict between the two is not resolved. The preacher does not take in her advice at all, preferring to overlook it. His response is simply to order her a pancake!
In the situation, there is a lot of symbolism in this dish. It can stand for the belief in a flat earth, which some fundamentalists believed and still believe in. It can symbolise a bland type of food which never changes, and which most people swallow down easily. And as you see a pancake lying on a plate, you see only one side of it - not the flip side.
Messiahs need
people dying in their name
You could have spared her