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Singled Out: The Great Discord's The Aging Man

06/03/2015
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Today The Great Discord tells us about the song "The Aging Man" from their brand new album "Duende," which was just released this week by Metal Blade. Here is the story:

So, are you afraid of death? Imagine that you are lying on your deathbed and you're full of regret. Is that not what's called a personal hell? The struggle within ourselves when facing our own mortality could be enormous, regardless if you are young or old. This effectively makes it one of the biggest struggles we have as people, simply because we're aware of the fact that we're gonna die. It might even be the single most powerful driving force behind all human actions. Death is something you cannot hide from. To learn how to die is to learn how to live.

The song itself is an attempt to conceptualize this struggle. When we wrote it we were way out in the woods in rural Sweden. A cabin in the woods basically. Everything was dead quiet except for the odd human-like bark from the occasional deer. The heartbeat came first, and the music soon followed. When we listened back to it it quickly became apparent what it was about. It was in the middle of the night.

Fia stared bleakly into the darkness outside our window, a slow drizzle of rain coming down softly on the window pane. "This song is about the old man" She started slowly, with eyes tracing something outside the window, "I can see him out there, limping, sobbing. This is a man who has had a run-in with death, and lost". Floorboards creaking, she leaned forward and put a hand on the misted window. "Yes... it's him".

We later realized that the heartbeat is a symbol for the life leaving him. It's funny how sometimes you feel like the music you have created leads you to these realizations only after you have actually finished it. Like if your subconsciousness had an agenda, and only afterward lets you understand.

The words came to us very quickly, and given the theme and topic, this was also the song that led us toward our visual excentricities. The music demanded to be presented in a different manner visually than just by Fia. We needed to create a different entity for Fia to step into. Something that could channel everything we write about, without being obscene or out of place. Something that is neither god, nor bad. An entity that embodies all of the demons, the anxiety, sorrow, pain but also warmth and joy that comes with being a human.

This song served both as the perfect opener for the album and our entire concept for this band as it symbolizes and embodies so much of what we're trying to create with our music. A feeling that you can never be completely sure, of anything really, life can be exceedingly difficult. But that's ok, because we're all human.

Be that as it may, it can be hard for people to even try to think about these kinds of questions, they are simply too big. You may well think that we are pretentious, pathetic and ridiculous in trying to tackle the big question of life, namely death. But the question is; who will be the wiser?

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!

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