In the Wake of Fear was written in the summer of 2008. I had been sifting through some old recordings, and found this little harmonic thing that I had done at some point in that sounded a little creepy. I thought it might be a good part for a song, so I basically wrote the rest of the song around it. The main riff is probably one of the simplest things that I've written, but it's incredibly fun to play. There's a lot of "chunk" to that part, which was at least partially inspired by the "new" amp that I had bought several months before, which was a very ugly first-year Peavey 5150 with a Marshall logo glued to the front. I still use that amp-it's probably the meanest-sounding one I've ever owned, and it delivers a very satisfying "CHUNK!" when you hammer away on a palm-muted chord.
I often refer to the song "In the Wake of Fear" as "the song without a chorus", because the chorus more or less consists of yelling "IN THE WAKE OF FEAR!". Awfully fun, though. Plus, I wanted to do something that had a large dynamic swing in it. Again, just like in Defiance, Troy took the first solo during the half-time section, and I do the second solo over the verse riff. And, if you remember what I mentioned in the entry about Defiance; Chris recorded the drums for this song without any guitars, bass, or vocals. That made the quiet parts that much harder, since there is little more than some cymbal taps and whatnot. Still, it was taken care of in 2 takes.
Lyrically, it was written about the same time as Defiance. When a song doesn't have lyrics, I kind of blabber out phrases during rehearsals. That helps me set the rhythm of the lyrics and sometimes helps me get a line that gets the rest of the lyrics rolling. This was one of those situations. The line "I can't take the pressure", was what spurred on the rest of the song. It raised the question, "What pressure can't he take?" From there, I sort of imagined my way through the rest of it. I pictured some freedom fighter or refugee in a war-torn country trying to figure out how to carry on. That was kind of a neat image in a way, but certainly nothing that I could hang a lyric on. They always say "write what you know", and I have no experience being in the military, fighting in a revolution, being a refugee, or anything even remotely close to that.
What I do know about is quitting smoking. I know about the shakes, the bad moods, the weird "inverse buzz" that you have, the inability to concentrate, the incessant cough, the tingling in the extremities, and the anxiety of being in situations where you cannot smoke. The physical aspect of quitting isn't actually any worse than having a mild cold. The mental aspect is the killer, and you have to wrestle with your own mind in order to actually quit. The mental aspect is also why most people who quit later start again. So what I basically did with the lyrics to "In the Wake of Fear" is take my experience with quitting smoking and wrapped it in the imagery of some sort of person in a much more interesting situation (the aforementioned). Here's how it goes:
I see an image of the world, a faded picture of a better life from before the dawn of evil days.
All these images I see, appear to me through tired and restless eyes; but I can see through the lies.
A thousand nights fall before the break of day. Who can take it any longer, when living life this way?
I keep holding out for the better days to come. That may be after the chaos ends, and all the battles are won.
The future's undetermined. The darkness, still so near. Something new emerges, 'cause freedom lies in the wake of fear.
A million nightmares descend into my mind. But when I wake, they do not fade in the light. I can't take the pressure of fighting my way through, but if I don't I'm living life as a fool.
The future's undetermined. The darkness, still so near. Something new emerges, 'cause freedom lies in the wake of fear.
The tyrants of the human soul retain control by binding up our minds so we tell ourselves their lies.
When you think about it, any element of life that increases a person's freedom comes with a level of anxiety, because freedom almost always involves risk. When you're a kid, the freedom to ride a bike comes after the fear of falling off. The freedom of moving out of your parents' house comes after the fear of leaving home. The freedom of taking your first long car drive to a new place comes after the fear of getting lost.
Anyway, that's the story of "In the Wake of Fear".
-Travis
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