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about
People will likely ask me:
“Mike, what’s heavy metal got to do with Blues??”
To which I respond:
“Everything! Heavy metal wouldn’t exist without Blues!”
While there’s lots of influence from European classical music in metal, there’s also a ton of influence from Blues in classic metal bands. The music definitely has that metal sound: that driving, gallop rhythm is sort of my nod and tribute to Iron Maiden. My guitarist, Peter Johnston, who loves metal as much as I do, played one hell of a guitar solo on this tune, and that’s also him doing that relentless gallop. If any tune is Peter’s time to shine on the record, it’s this one, and shine he most certainly does!
For this tune, I wanted to write about a post apocalyptic United States. The song is from the point of view of someone who has been radicalized into one of those far right militia groups in the United States and about them taking over. When I wrote the lyrics I thought such a scenario could never happen, but when Donald Trump tried to get the very groups I just mentioned to pull off a failed coup and insurrection on January 6, 2021, the song suddenly became a warning about the dangers of White Supremacy and how these lyrics must never become real.
lyrics
Lyrics:
"We cry as a nation
In silence we weep."
Those were the last words
That he said to me
Well I live for my country
But we feel so apart
Our ethics and morals
Now consumed in the dark
I got that long way ahead
I got no time to mourn my dead
And if my heart could be set free
I would laugh, the blind would see
In manifest vision
We have rightly assumed
The dreams of our fathers
And the hopes of our youth
We have now our fortunes
As our Empires grow
In the heat of the desert
Or the frost and the snow
I have now seen what we have won
Freedom calls with loaded gun
Governors cry and soldiers weep
We've taken back what they would keep, oh!
We now the people
Of freedom now born
Have fought back the night
And weathered the storm
But as daylight now beckons
Can my eyes be deceived?
We are now the gods
As we ride to the sea
We will now take foreign lands
They shall know truth wrought by our hands
And as the waves call us forth
Freedom comes, with gun and horse
credits
from Outside The Box,
track released January 14, 2022
Produced By: Chris Birkett and Mike Nagoda
Engineered and Mixed By: Chris Birkett
Mastered By: Chris Birkett and Jacob McCauley
Performed By Mike Nagoda and the Spectrum Blues Band:
Mike Nagoda- Electric Double Slide Guitar, Hammond Organ and Vocals
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