I don't know the song, but from the context I interpret as the subject is preaching to people who don't know any better, and they lap up his rhetoric due to his confidence and aura.
'Innocence' in this context means something along the lines of 'lack of knowledge or experience about complex or harmful aspects of the world'. Sort of like naivety.
The punctuation in these lyrics is not "normal", it may be artistic or meant to indicate where the singer should pause or take a breath.
I would take the lines in relation to those preceding it. Songs and poems are infamous for having many different interpretations, and the writer usually prepares them this way on purpose in order to force people to discuss possible meanings rather than having the author express a single clear meaning from the outset.
My first interpretation would be:
"Now this war [is] a small one", you wail as a preacher
to a vacuum of innocence sucking on your brilliance.
The singer is imagining the character as saying [quote] "This war is a small one!".
"To wail" means the person is crying or screaming their message, with the implication that no one is paying close attention. Imagine a "preacher" standing in a plaza with a microphone, speaking loudly, standing on a box -- but all the public are just walking past as if the preacher is not there. Maybe they stop for a minute to see what is being talked about, but then they keep going.
"To" in the line you highlighted is not a verb, it is a direction of movement.
The preacher is wailing INTO emptiness, the people the preacher is talking to are ignoring the preacher. The singer implies that the public are ignorant of whatever deeper meaning the preacher is referring to -- but not why they are ignorant. Is the preacher's message real, and the crowd is ignorant? Or is the preacher imagining something and the crowd knows the message is contrary to reality?
The clues are in the following lines -- example "toy soldiers [from childhood] did as they were told [during a] fictional invasion". But that is in contrast with a real situation earlier in the lyrics: "your men wouldn't stop fighting, so you didn't either".
Maybe the singer is trying to offer a protest against a politician or a preacher who fought in a real war or invasion, and won, but then they were unable to stop fighting after the war ended. In their head, the preacher thinks the invasion is still a threat even if the war ended -- and why can't they convince the public that the invasion is sitll a threat? Was their mind impacted in some way that changes the way they think, or the way they understand the world?
In their own mind, the preacher or politician (the person "wailing" in this lyric) is a masterful hero, politician, or general, like Caeser. But to everyone else they are just someone who is yelling about nonsense. The question the singer wants you to debate is whether the preacher is correct or the crowd is correct -- or whether both are wrong (or both correct!).
edit: songs are also a VERY popular form of protest, it is a good way to criticize politicians or powerful people, and this song is almost certainly a protest song; but about what I am not sure
Maybe he is criticizing politicians who want to start a war for "glory" even if there is no good reason? Maybe the politician is imagining themselves as "better than" the average public and sees normal people as pawns? There are a lot of possibilities.
I don't know the song, but from the context I interpret as the subject is preaching to people who don't know any better, and they lap up his rhetoric due to his confidence and aura.
'Innocence' in this context means something along the lines of 'lack of knowledge or experience about complex or harmful aspects of the world'. Sort of like naivety.
Double meaning. Vacuum is a void space. it’s also a household appliance that sucks things up.
The punctuation in these lyrics is not "normal", it may be artistic or meant to indicate where the singer should pause or take a breath.
I would take the lines in relation to those preceding it. Songs and poems are infamous for having many different interpretations, and the writer usually prepares them this way on purpose in order to force people to discuss possible meanings rather than having the author express a single clear meaning from the outset.
My first interpretation would be:
The singer is imagining the character as saying [quote] "This war is a small one!".
"To wail" means the person is crying or screaming their message, with the implication that no one is paying close attention. Imagine a "preacher" standing in a plaza with a microphone, speaking loudly, standing on a box -- but all the public are just walking past as if the preacher is not there. Maybe they stop for a minute to see what is being talked about, but then they keep going.
"To" in the line you highlighted is not a verb, it is a direction of movement.
The preacher is wailing INTO emptiness, the people the preacher is talking to are ignoring the preacher. The singer implies that the public are ignorant of whatever deeper meaning the preacher is referring to -- but not why they are ignorant. Is the preacher's message real, and the crowd is ignorant? Or is the preacher imagining something and the crowd knows the message is contrary to reality?
The clues are in the following lines -- example "toy soldiers [from childhood] did as they were told [during a] fictional invasion". But that is in contrast with a real situation earlier in the lyrics: "your men wouldn't stop fighting, so you didn't either".
Maybe the singer is trying to offer a protest against a politician or a preacher who fought in a real war or invasion, and won, but then they were unable to stop fighting after the war ended. In their head, the preacher thinks the invasion is still a threat even if the war ended -- and why can't they convince the public that the invasion is sitll a threat? Was their mind impacted in some way that changes the way they think, or the way they understand the world?
In their own mind, the preacher or politician (the person "wailing" in this lyric) is a masterful hero, politician, or general, like Caeser. But to everyone else they are just someone who is yelling about nonsense. The question the singer wants you to debate is whether the preacher is correct or the crowd is correct -- or whether both are wrong (or both correct!).
edit: songs are also a VERY popular form of protest, it is a good way to criticize politicians or powerful people, and this song is almost certainly a protest song; but about what I am not sure
Maybe he is criticizing politicians who want to start a war for "glory" even if there is no good reason? Maybe the politician is imagining themselves as "better than" the average public and sees normal people as pawns? There are a lot of possibilities.