À LA UNE
The dark underbelly of a modern, urban society, slowly crumbling from within, in an age of unchecked greed and abuse of power. In hindsight “Decadent Age” pretty much sums up the George W. Bush era!
A song dedicated to all those sailors and whalers of old who lost their lives in the most inhospitable area of the world: The Antarctic.
Using the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria as a metaphor, it’s about the frailty of civilisation, about how easy we’ll fall back into barbarism. Also it’s about the futility of it all. Keats wanted his epitaph to be: "Here lies one whose name was writ in water." Jesus wrote in the sand. It feels good to believe in the immortality of mankind’s achievements, but in the end, even the Pyramids won’t last.
Inspired by “The Running Man” and various other post-apocalyptic novels and movies as well as the original Roman gladiator games (yep, there’s a lot of Greek-Roman antiquity stuff in this manuscript!). An old, battle scarred gladiator prepares for what is most likely his last fight, his feelings a mixture of sadness and pride.
Pointed media satire or utter nonsense? As I recall it, “Day of the Bubble Gum Bomb” was written intentionally silly. And yet, there’s a rare sharpness to the lyrics, lacking from most of my other stuff, a sort of anger lashing out – a mood which the band in my opinion nailed down perfectly. This is also one of the few lyrics I didn’t revise for the cd. Henrik
Very much inspired by Ozzy in the late 80's. I even tried to emphasize it in the solo, though I can never play like Randy Rhoads (R.I.P.) – but then again, who can…! Peter