So I decided I wanted to look up the lyrics to Black Hole Sun, and I found part of an interview here with the man who wrote the song. The most interesting part of me was his explanation of the lyric "Times are gone for honest man", which he explains:
"It's really difficult for a person to create their own life and their own freedom. It's going to become more and more difficult, and it's going to create more and more disillusioned people who become dishonest and angry and are willing to fuck the next guy to get what they want. There's so much stepping on the backs of other people in our profession. We've been so lucky that we've never had to do that. Part of it was because of our own tenacity, and part of it was because we were lucky."
Now let's talk about why this is interesting. Janus is referred to by Patton as "an inner coach that acts with the the one intention of self-preservation" (he also says this is the "simply put" version of who Janus is, just throwing that out there.)
Later Janus himself suggests "compiling a list of people we need to nudge...down a flight of stairs till they hold another round of call backs", and on two separate occasions tried to get Thomas to turn his back to some degree on his friends for his own benefit, I'd even be willing to argue that it might have been Janus encouraging Roman to get Thomas to stay hanging out with the "charming fellow" rather than going to Joan's reading.
Janus whole playlist is so very carefully selected for his jazzy, lying aesthetic that it can be easily accepted at face value. "This song mentions snakes and lying, it's perfect for Janus." But if we look at the meaning behind some of these, like with Black Hole Sun, I'd wager we'd learn a bit more about our favorite snake boi.
