Monster
Skillet · Awake (Deluxe Edition)
A raw confession of inner struggle, crying for rescue it never names.
Where the words land
Signal: Worth Weighing, leaning edifying.
What do these signals mean?
- Edifying: Points the heart toward God, truth, hope, or love.
- Worth Weighing: Real good and real concern together. Test it before you take it in.
- Strained: Strains against Scripture: leans toward what could dull or mislead.
- At Odds: At odds with Scripture: celebrates what it warns against. Little here builds up.
Weighed against Scripture
“Why won't somebody come and save me from this?”
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
Paul's cry 'who will rescue me from this body of death' mirrors the narrator's plea for deliverance from an inward struggle he cannot control.
“I must confess that I feel like a monster”
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I admit that the law is good. In that case, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh; for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do.”
The song's confession of doing what one hates echoes Paul's description of the war between the will and sinful impulse.
“It wants my soul, it wants my heart”
“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”
The predatory, devouring imagery of the inner monster parallels Peter's warning of an adversary seeking to devour.
The song as a whole
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
The whole song's unresolved cry for a clean heart against inner corruption resonates with David's plea for inward renewal, though the song never arrives at that resolution.
In short
This song voices the terrifying awareness of one's own capacity for sin and rage, framed as an internal monster the narrator can't control. It doesn't celebrate that darkness; it confesses it and cries out for rescue, even without naming who could provide it. The tension stays unresolved throughout, which is part of its honesty.
- Lyrical content
No profanity; imagery of a caged beast, rage, and darkness, but nothing graphic or glorified.
- Spiritual posture
The narrator is honest about an inner struggle with sin and self-destruction, crying out for rescue rather than celebrating the darkness.
- Apparent intent
Skillet frames this as a confession of inner struggle with sin/temptation, giving voice to an inward battle many listeners recognize.
What do these ratings mean?
- Lyrical content, what the words say on the surface. Clean: nothing coarse, sexual or violent. Mild: a trace of it, by allusion or a rare word. Strong: profanity, sex or violence in plain words. Explicit: graphic, or sin held up to admire.
- Spiritual posture, where the song's heart points. God-honoring: toward God, truth or hope. Searching: honestly reaching or wrestling toward truth, without arriving. Neutral: spiritually indifferent; neither reaches nor rejects. Dark: despairing, nihilistic, self-exalting or hostile to God.
- Apparent intent, what the song is for. Edifying: worship, encouragement, honest lament. Cathartic: letting grief, anger or longing out, told honestly. Ambiguous: hard to say what the song is for. Harmful: celebrates evil, mocks faith or draws toward sin.
Does this song's honest naming of your own struggle point you toward seeking the rescue it cries out for?
An AI-assisted reading. It can misread a lyric, a metaphor or a song’s intent.
