The Lyrics
From the very first chord this song dredges up strong, dark feelings... fear, despair... desperation. Those were my thoughts when I heard the instrumental track Pete gave me to work with. I hadn't written any new lyrics for quite some time and was quite daunted by the prospect, especially as Pete had been working on these tracks for quite some time and already had images and ideas of what they were about. After we discussed those ideas it was clear we were singing from the same songheet so to speak, and so I began...
I sat down, late at night, and started wrtiting...
Over the last few years I've found myself in places most normal people would avoid at all costs. I've been shot at, bombed and generally pissed off by everything that has gone on around me. As a result of this I've started looking at things with a slightly different perspective, what happened to the world I played in as a kid? Why do we find ourselves in a world where everything has turned upside down? What have we got left to look forward to? And who the hell is going to sort it all out?
Without realising it I poured all that uncertainty and all those questions onto the paper in front of me... The verses are full of the questions I found running round my head at times over the last few years. The chorus, or lack of, was a conscious decision by both Pete and myself. The one line refrain of Save The Day, hanging over that immense guitar riff is a both a demand for someone to stand up and be counted, and a cry for help...
It was strange, I wrote the whole thing in about half an hour and when we met, all we did was change a little of the prasing. I didn't realise how personal the lyric was until after we'd recorded it and Pete said "You can tell you're singing about what you know". My initial response was "Eh?" but, now that I've had time to listen to it without having to think about writing the lyric, I see what he means...
I am really pleased with the way this song turned out, I feel that I have managed to produce a lyric which compliments the unbelievably powerful guitar part while adding a new dimension to the overall song.
Only one question remains... Are you man enough to stand up and Save The Day?
The Music
This one was another of those times when the song pretty much wrote itself, in fact it was one of twins... this and IN THE END were written pretty much back to back in early 2008. I was playing about with dropped D tunings (tuning the bottom E string down to D) and the opening riff just happened. Then the next one arrived, though this did take a little work. I am always fascinated by this phrygian major mode with the flattened second and major third, as it seems to add a tension and texture that I love. In essence it's not a complex song, but I think perhaps that's part of it's power, and it should be great fun to do live as that big opening riff is huge!
This was one of the first songs that Graeme and I originally recorded in the first session. There's a roughness to his voice on that occasion (both on this and IN THE END) which sounds just great.
