(I needed this song to be slower paced for several reasons. First of all, I had to reflect on where the story is at this point in the album - the unbearable sulking feeling of giving up and feeling helpless. Second of all, I knew the other two songs on the album were going to be more technical songs, and I wanted to avoid monotony - variety on an album is important to me. And lastly, I had never written a slow song before and wanted to challenge myself.
Writing this song was like pulling teeth. It went through at least three versions over the course of 11+ months, and was easily the most difficult song on the album to make happen. The way I see it, it's much easier to keep the listener's attention when writing a fast song, because you have more opportunity to interest them - in other words, you have more tools at your disposal. When setting out to write a song with the goal of being drawn out and sounding droning, I feel like you have to be much more clever and have much more foresight with your songwriting. That said, I tried to orchestrate the instruments quite a bit, with all three strings doing something independent from one another in certain parts (though, some of the drum fills are probably a bit too active, admittedly). The lyrics were something I also had trouble with, and took forever working on before I was satisfied with. I had my doubts about this whole song pretty much right up until I finished the lyrics and put vocals to it, when it all seemed to fall into place. There is some repetition and rhyme in the lyrics which is supposed to represent attempting something over and over again.
The opening riff is something I came up with while dicking around with my brother's guitar back when I was 15 or 16, long before I owned one. I remembered it and always told myself I'd do something with it.)
lyrics
My throat has little left to be cut now
But the menacing blade of failure persists
Rusted with the blood of those who could not
True to the rite of passage
Fractures in the brick wall in my path -
So close, yet stands in tact
Fractures in my skull held in my hands -
The battering ram begins to crack
The dismal mass exodus
Left beaten, broken, disintegrated
Seeks to become one with the place of liquid
So we might be molded anew
Fool me once
Fool me twice
Fool me thrice
A fool to be shamed
Hopelessness is not conveyable by words
Forcing one from knowledge to resignation
So fascinating, how loathing sustains itself:
Malignantly feeds
Perpetually breeds
Parasitically bleeds
And more, it needs
Fool me thrice
Fool me twice
Fool me once
Foolish to be ashamed?
Break the self to rebuild the self
Removal of self
Dissection of self
Examination of self
I know the answer exists,
Where is it?
Where is it?
Where is it?
WHERE IS IT?
On their self-titled debut, Bhavachakra make black metal, flamenco guitar, and Liszt-like piano passages collide. Bandcamp Album of the Day Oct 17, 2016
