King of Country – Careers in Science track #7

[In the coming weeks, as The Longwalls release Careers in Science on Tuesday, March 1, I will be posting short notes on the concepts behind each song on the record. For the most part, we each had very clear ideas in mind before beginning to write. Each song has a little story to tell, and we'll do our best to explain them each leading up to the release.]

Concept:

In the long-long ago, when the crops failed, when there was famine, or when the plague hit, we would look to our king for responsibility. It was he who had a covenant with the gods, and it must have been his offense to the gods that brought upon our strife. We would pick up torches and the day’s equivelant to pitch-forks, march to the king’s tower, pick him up, and throw him out the window. The gods would be satisfied, his transgressions that affected his people would be forgiven, and the next king would do a much better job (or else).

Have we changed that much in a thousand years? Or even in 200 odd years since we departed from the British monarchy? I don’t know. Perhaps it is again childish of me to think so, but in a thousand years from now, will future people, in their silver speed-suits and flying cars, look at us as that much differently from those villagers of Bohemia?

We need to have someone we can love. We need to have someone we can hate. Someone to pin it all on. A despot is just as useful as a messiah to us these days. As long was we get to bitch and throw him out on his ear every four years.

 - “The King is dead, Long live the King, Long live the Kind, The King is dead.”

Music:

I love the way this one builds organically until everyone is playing as loudly as possible in the end…the dynamic works really well live, but is a little difficult to capture in a studio recording…I know I stuggled with it, as the song changes somewhat when you take away the live, ‘the wheels might come off’ feeling that I get when playing and singing it. Still, the studio recording is a great document to this one, I know I will always love playing it live…