It would be interesting if the use of the numbers in the lyrics was related to numerological meanings, it's something I haven't really explored. Has anyone done it beyond what Glen/Finn posted?


A correction to the lyrics in the discography:
All the yobbos in the styx
Not the sticks
As stated by Rudy Neumann himself sometime ago.
Quote:
in Greek mythology, one of the rivers of the underworld. The word styx literally means hateful and expresses loathing of death. In the epics of Homer, the gods swore by the water of the Styx as their most binding oath; if a god perjured himself, he was rendered insensible for a year and then banished from the divine society for nine years. Hesiod personified Styx as the daughter of Oceanus and the mother of Emulation, Victory, Power, and Might. Later the Styx was identified with the stream now called Mavronri (Greek: Black Water) near Nonacris in the Aroania Mountains (near modern Slos) in Arcadia. The ancients believed that its water was poisonous and would dissolve any vessel containing it except one made of the hoof of a horse or an ass. There is a legend that Alexander the Great was poisoned by Styx water.

Taken from:
"Styx"Encyclopdia Britannica
<search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=71901>


I always thought this line referred to those dying in war crossing to the world of the dead. Also consider that most of the soldiers would be poor and less educated people, which may qualify them as yobbos.


"5 for this awful dive"
I also heard this one as "five for the sulfur dye," being a chemist and having read about World War I, and how Germany's strength in organic chemistry helped their weapons development, I immediately thought of chemical weapons. Mustard gas and Agent Orange came to mind, but they're not dyes.
Agent Orange is a herbicide mixture, used as defoliant in Vietnam, contaminated with small amounts of an extremely toxic dioxin compound.
Mustard gas is a sulfur compound:
ClCH2CH2-S-CH2CH2Cl, also know as 2,2'-dichlorodiethyl sulfide (and many other similar names).
It was used in World War I, a war fought in the trenches. "Dig, avoid decay" a line that reinforced the association to WWI, even if the the protection against chemical weapons was related more to protective clothing, underground shelters would offer less exposure.

"Sulfur dye" keeps with the themes of the song, even if is not the correct form of the lyrics.


P.S. I'm still waiting for other Mac users to try having the system read aloud the words at the end of Numbers using "Victoria's" voice (or other?). I still think is eerily similar.