Yeah, the song actually has a place in The Downward Spiral's narrative and was never really intended to be a party song, or a glorification of sex. The album follows a hedonist who fucks his life up and throws it down the toilet, culminating in his suicide—it's more or less an indictment of the "sex, drugs, and rock & roll" lifestyle that many rockstars, including Reznor himself, tended to lead. Or at least, that's how I've always heard it.
The first half of the album shows his more hedonistic side, except for "Mr. Self Destruct," which always read to me as a sort of
in media res style opening. "Closer" is the most overtly hedonistic song on the album, after which the true downward spiral really begins as the consequences of the protagonist's behavior start to catch up with him.
So, is "Closer" a sex song? Yes and no, let's go over all the lyrics to see why.
You let me violate you
You let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you
You let me complicate you
The first verse doesn't do a whole lot for me other than establish that this is indeed a
song about fucking. But there's more to it than that.
The "you let me complicate" you line to end the stanza is the most interesting part, as the song begins to hint at making a somewhat broader statement. Sex being the very carnal act that it is, it seems somewhat ironic that having it with could potentially complicate our relationships with people, creating all sorts of attachment and entitlement issues after the fact. Trent delves deeper into this later.
(Help me) I broke apart my insides
(Help me) I've got no soul to sell
(Help me) The only thing that works for me
Help me get away from myself
The pre-chorus. Okay, so clearly, he's saying that the euphoria achieved from sex is the only thing that makes his shit life worth living to him. It's one of the only things that gives his life meaning. The other, of course, being drugs. Engaging in these types of behaviors allows him to escape, or get away from himself. At this point, it becomes clear how much the narrator loathes himself.
I wanna fuck you like an animal
I wanna feel you from the inside
I wanna fuck you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed
You get me closer to God
And then we reach the main chorus, which is the only part of the song people remember or care to listen to, which is why it has the reputation it does. Yeah, these lines are pretty audacious, especially for 1994, but there's a little more to them than meets the ear.
The infamous "fuck you like animal" lyric is actually pretty cool, because it puts
everything I've said so far into one line in SUCH a blunt and frank fashion, that it's difficult to assume he's trying to say anything deeper—but I maintain that he is. This isn't just some horndog song saying "I want to fuck you" to be edgy and cool. This is the narrator admitting outright that the reason he wants to have cheap, animalistic sex is because it keeps him from nihilist hell.
The "you get me closer to god" is the line no one thinks about, but should, because it reveals the song's intentions quite plainly.
You can have my isolation
You can have the hate that it brings
You can have my absence of faith
You can have my everything
Sex is how he takes out all his baggage and frustrations with the world. It's a TOTAL release; it's not just for fun, it's how he functions.
It's important to note at this point—with all this "you you you" stuff, it should become apparent to the listener at this point that he only wants to take out his
own shit and foist it upon his partner. He doesn't care about his partner's baggage. He doesn't care about his partner at all, because it's all about him and his problems.
(Help me) You tear down my reason
(Help me) It's your sex I can smell
(Help me) You make me perfect
Help me become somebody else
Just reinforcing statements made earlier, really.
The chorus is heard a second time, until the sick instrumental part comes in, where we eventually hear this whispered, muffled lyrics that I'm sure most casual listeners don't know are an important part of the song:
Through every forest
Above the trees
Within my stomach
Scraped off my knees
I drink the honey
Inside your hive
You are the reason
I stay alive
Some of Trent's best and most beautiful lyrics are on TDS, and this is overall my favorite part of the song. It wraps up all the points made rather nicely, and the poetic style of the lyrics contrasts jarringly with the blunt nature of the song's chorus.
Literal interpretations aside, the song can be looked upon as a diary entry of sorts. You have the narrator more or less confessing all these dark thoughts going on in his mind—how sex is the only thing that makes him feel complete, makes him feel closer to god, etc—he talks about feeling hated, isolated, lonely, godless—but most importantly, the only thing that allows him to feel any form of release whatsoever is taking advantage of and having power over someone else's body. There's no love or affection in anything he does. He only does it to feel better about himself—pretty much exactly as you would a drug.
It's not a happy or fun concept, and the song was never meant to be fun or happy. The fact that it can function as a party song was more of an accident, but knowing it's the song that catapulted NIN into super stardom is still pretty cool.
To this day, it's probably in my top 3 NIN singles, and it also happens to have the greatest music video of ALL time:
NIN Closer