Diamonds for Tears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Rl8WMqejc
There y’go – the video’s probably much more entertaining than this will be. 
This song gets most of its meaning when you take it in the context of the other songs that come around it – after all, this song follows Miss Impossible, and precedes Passion Colors Everything (next week’s bit, Lord willing).
Considering the paradoxes established by Miss Impossible, and her showing up after a pair of love songs, Diamonds for Tears takes our ‘hero’ back into the frustration of dealing with a relationship that he’s not entirely sure about. This time, it’s not as blatant as the Ultimate Fling was. “When you’re sleepin’ next to me, I know you’re the one. And when I hear you callin’ my name, I know the good I’ve done!”
But at the same time, there are things in the way, that leave him uncertain. “If I deny you what you’re searchin’, do I do it out of fear? Am I rulin’ out my reason, killing that which I hold dear?”
But, taken in the even larger context of the album’s view of a revolution gone horribly awry (see Revolution Roulette and Psychosis), we see what the conflict just might be. Miss Impossible isn’t cheating on him. She’s not hurting him, or using him… she needs to use him.
His girl’s in trouble – the revolution that he may have started has come back around to threaten the woman he loves. “In these days of man-made wonders, we still bicker over flies. When you come seekin’ for forgiveness, I’ll be forced to choose my side!” The conflict isn’t between love and frustration – it’s between love and duty. He knows that his girl is in trouble, and that he wants to help her. But to do so, he has to turn against the revolution. And he doesn’t know whether he should or not – he’s not entirely sure what’s going on, or what all of this is meant for, on either side. Is she a scapegoat? Is she actually hurting the system? If so, should it be hurt?
“If I knew what it was meant for, would I know to play my part?”
“Is it a lost cause? Can we overlook this taint? Are these the dead laws, like a doubt eatin’ the saint?”
Does he help her? I like to think he does, given the songs that follow. I’ll go into it in further detail later, but I think that he does come to her aid, accepting the price he’ll have to pay, and what it means.
“And though I feel these shackles, like my darkness closin’ in, I will hold out my hands – I will hold out my hands!”
He’s shackled by his duties, by his responsibilities to the system he helped to birth, but he knows that it’s sick, that it’s tainted deep inside. And he’s not going to sit back and watch as it destroys the woman he loves. He comes to her aid, even though it’s going to destroy what he’s put all this effort into creating.
