The other day in the car the family was listening to a song from Anberlin, called “Reclusion”. One of the lines in the chorus goes like this:
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide.
Nice line, but it had me thinking that this could be taken two different ways, which aren’t radically different but noticeable. I don’t have a physical copy of this release so I had to go by what lyrics sites have it listed as, which may or may not be accurate.
The thing with lyrics is that bands and their proofreaders sometimes aren’t the best at spotting ambiguity, maybe from the nature of lyrics. Worse still is going by the vocals, which often do not follow the natural rhythms of speaking and can drop or add subtle emphasis and can change meanings, or at least the implication of meanings.
If I take the line as I think it should be taken, it would be written like this:
Sins, like skeletons, are so very hard to hide.
Which translates more clearly into:
All sins are like skeletons in that they are hard to keep hidden.
Without the commas, it could mean that, or it could also mean:
The sins that are like skeletons are hard to keep hidden.
This implies that all sins are not like skeletons and the ones that aren’t are able to be kept hidden. Although the way this line was written in the song is a little awkward to get across this meaning, this proposition is a little more reasonable since there are some wrongdoings that are very easy to hide (from other people at least, not from the Big Guy).
I know I can say for certain that there are most likely more little nuances like this in lyrics that we might not notice, and that my mind wanders a little too much when driving.