The song says there are two paths, but it’s never too late to change the road you’re on. So maybe when our separate paths lead us out of childhood, our roads will converge, and we’ll be together again.
The author knows that she did not have a good connection with her brother before he left, but she wants their paths to converge so they can be together again.
I have his records—the ones he didn’t break—and I study his music like an apprentice. There’s Metallica and W.A.S.P. and Queen and Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin; I put on the Led Zeppelin and play “Stairway to Heaven” over and over. I lie on my bed and close my eyes and think if I keep listening to this one song at some point he’ll be listening too.
The author misses her brother, and tries to remember him through the records he left behind. She is listening to the various artists he has listened to, and hopes that he will listen too some day.
Sometimes he knocks on the wall, and I go to his room, and he shows me the records. I sit beside him and read about death and God and the devil and war and sex and hate and love. I know he’s sharing things with me that he can’t say out loud. He talks less than he used to.
The author's brother has changed from how he was before. He used to talk to the author about many things, but now he cannot say them out loud. The only connection they have now is the heavy metal music.
I lie on my back, hands laced behind my head and eyes closed because I know that’s exactly what he’s doing
This section shows that her brother listens to music frequently and she already has a good understanding of what he is doing.
the tinsel rain of cymbals and urgency of words. The music is hard and heavy with lyrics like poetry; he calls it heavy metal.
They way the music is described helps me create an image inside my head of how the music is. Phrases like "the tinsel rain of cymbals" is a good use of imagery to describe the music her brother is listening to.
rooms are in the basement separated by one thin wall. My bed is against the wall and at night I can hear him listening to his music. He listens on headphones but the volume’s so loud I hear everything:
This shows the relationship between the narrator and her brother. It seems like she is trying to connect with him, but they are separated, just like their rooms are separated by a thin wall.