The term "mythology" can refer either to the study of myths (e.g., comparative mythology), or to a body or collection of myths (a mythos, e.g., Inca mythology). In folkloristics, a myth is a sacred narrative usually explaining how the world or humankind came to be in its present form, although, in a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story. Myths typically involve supernatural characters and are endorsed by rulers or priests. They may arise as overelaborated accounts of historical events, as allegory for or personification of natural phenomena, or as an explanation of ritual. They are transmitted to convey religious or idealized experience, to establish behavioral models, and to teach.
Early rival classifications of Greek mythos by Euhemerus, Plato's Phaedrus, and Sallustius were developed by the neoplatonists and revived by Renaissance mythographers as in the Theologia mythologica (1532). Nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as evolution toward science (E. B. Tylor), "disease of language" (Max Müller), or misinterpretation of magical ritual (James Frazer). Later interpretations rejected opposition between myth and science, such as Jungian archetypes, Joseph Campbell's "metaphor of spiritual potentiality", or Lévi-Strauss's fixed mental architecture. Tension between Campbell's comparative search for monomyth or Ur-myth and anthropological mythologists' skepticism of universal origin has marked the 20th century. Further, modern mythopoeia such as fantasy novels, manga, and urban legend, with many competing artificial mythoi acknowledged as fiction, supports the idea of myth as ongoing social practice.
Fragile featured little girl
Just stepped out into the world
White cotton summer dresses, hair tied in lace
Pearly button eyes in her girly little face
She married a man, what a louse like a bull
In her China dream house, with confetti in his pocket
And ice in his heart he tore that little girl's world apart
So don't go to her like the others before
With some worn out line from a film that you saw
No don't waste your time and your trouble you'll see
She don't believe in mythology
Now she's known voodoo in a kiss
And she's known witchcraft on nights like this
Like a fly in a spider's web or a rat in a trap
Whispers as lethal as a switchblade attack
No don't go to her like the others before
With some worn out line from a film that you saw
No don't waste your time or your trouble you'll see
She don't believe in mythology, in mythology
No don't waste your time and your trouble you'll see
So it goes, history shows, deserts must expand.
Camels sail like wooden ships, like women down the strand.
There's sand on second avenue and the wind blows like a train.
Taxis line up like a string of pearls, around the block again.
I remembered everything. Every window pane.
Every word came back to me, the way it used to be.
Then I saw your face, across the street,
Through the tears of Hercules.
There's a bus that leaves at 8: 15, and another one at 10.
Should i climb aboard, risk everything and ride it to the end?
Watch the hills like roller coasters, up into the sky.
And wish that you were here by me, so close that I could die.
You say love wrecks everything and none of us survive.
But I got over you last night, and I am still alive.
Till I saw your face, across the street,
Through the tears of Hercules.
You say love wrecks everything and none of survive.
But I got over you last night, and I am still alive.
Till I saw your face, across the street.
Through the tears of Hercules.
I've looked right past the simple things
What have my eyes missed?
Stuck in a space where nothing seems to fit
You live a myth, obsessed with it
Quiet as the sound
I'm always asking what it means
And now I can't stop twisting round and round
I've grown into this
This myth with you
I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Distorting my insides
I won't forget I'm drenched in it
'Cause I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Tangled words were never mine
I won't forget I'm lost in it
Slowly bending backwards
Til my days become misshaped
You deftly sway my thoughts with your fictitious ways
Nothing in me works the same
You've got a lot to explain
Still I'm asking
And still I can't stop twisting
I've grown into this myth with you
I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Distorting my insides
I won't forget I'm drenched in it
'Cause I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Tangled words were never mine
I won't forget I'm lost in it
Knots and crosses
Skews
I fold in two
With this road we take
I've lost all control of everything, especially me
You've lost everything especially me
You bite my tongue
Now I believe
I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Distorting my insides
I won't forget I'm drenched in it
'Cause I can't stop twisting around this storyline
Tangled words were never mine