1000 More Fools

I agree with most on here, that this song is about Christianity ("they try to tell me that the lamb is on the way" clearly a reference to the return of christ) being passed through the generations.
I think it also hints at Christianity frowning upon searching for answers and questioning the status quo of the church "The vortex of their minds ensconsed within the murky deep.
So what does it mean when your mind starts to stray?
Kaleidoscopic images of love on the way, brother you better get down on your knees and pray"

Images of the first stanza are of the empty slate, the child, the tabla rasa with words like inchoate and bucolic and also of it as an opportunity, as the rapture in the starving babies eyes is another convert

Chorus is an iteration of the born-again, evangelical values that are inherent in a concept like the rapture (that just sort of pops on the scene with the arrival of born again Christianity) and the inactivity of awaiting John's Apocalypse

2nd stanza continues to harangue on born again Christianity with their use of the bloody tv pulpit and that the inactive, passively accepting populace just receives and shuts off awaiting

and of course, tens of hundreds of such people are being spewed out awaiting their indoctrination, every fuckin day

I believe that this song is about modern man's general lack of independent thought. People have to rely on what they are told as they are incapable of forming their own thoughts.

'They' is used to represent these forces that instruct people: "I heard 'them' say that the meek shall reign on earth", "'They' try to tell me that the lamb is on the way". Clearly unless 'the lamb' is a saying that I'm unfamiliar with, then as 'they' are telling me that the lamb is on the way, 'they' are telling me something completely nonsensical. However, the masses are so obsequious, so "contented in their sleep", that they cannot reject these orders from 'them'.

In addition, the chorus can be considered to represent the disencouragement/repression of any independent thought. "When your mind starts to stray", i.e. when you think for yourself, you go against the status quo of society and as a consequence are punished in some way (you "get down on your knees and p(r)ay"). Thanks to 'them', ideas that have been generated through independent thought will always be overshadowed on the grand scale by the ideas that 'they' put out.

I consider this song to have an underlying theme concerning the development/existence of the 'Big Brother State' (see George Orwell's '1984' if you are unfamiliar with this). While this is a topic that we hear a lot about, we should never ignore it.

In conclusion, the '1000 More Fools' being born every day are the endless streams of people that cannot manage to think independently of what they are told. What we often would be consider to be someone's opinion and therefore to be independent thought is in fact just what has been regurgitated from what they have been told from other sources (see 'Only Entertainment').

This song is an expression of despair at this seemingly inescapable situation where people will never be capable of developing opinions that differ from those put across by mainstream thought, whether it be because of their ignorance or because they are discouraged from doing so by 'them'.