I think this is the first Sleepy Hollow song I where I wrote lyrics and sang. Musically it was a band collaboration - another from our early days. Yet another song we should've recorded with the original lineup but didn't. I rearranged the end for the big buildup, and I think it really adds to the song! The quiet chorus part was inspired by King Crimson's "Epitaph" (at least for me).
Lyrically, our drummer Frank Melick had started writing about the end of the world (the "millenium" getting a lot of attention when we wrote this in 1999). I used his idea, but not his lyrics - I decided to make it more of a "nature gets fed up with Mankind and wipes us out" thing. There's a little bit in the beginning inspired by Handel's Messiah (the part of "Every valley shall be exalted and all the mountains and hills made low").
We played a gig once where we ended up being a little too loud and heavy for the gig, and so Dan says, "we're gonna slow it down for the next song. This one's called ARMAGEDDON!"
lyrics
The drums of war have started
I tremble in my bones
The prophecies of madmen
Have suddenly come home
I see the storm clouds gather
I hear the ocean roar
I feel the magma pulsing
Our world shall be no more
A comet burns across the sky,
brings mountains low and valleys high,
and makes the Earth shake with it's might
The whole Earth tremors as she shifts,
and her hot blood pours out in rifts,
to show our death in Hellish light.
Tsunamis pound us from the sea,
and bring our cities to their knees,
our screams of anguish fill the night
(solo - Junior)
Upon the world man has become
A horrid plague, an evil scum
To Nature's greatness he's grown numb
He's poisoned sea and land and sky
So all that swim and crawl and fly
Shall in increasing numbers die
The beasts he alters at his will
The forests fall beneath his till
He's stricken Mother Nature ill
And so this horrid race of men
Shall from the face of Earth be cleansed
For us, I fear, it is the End
Volcanoes spew their embers high
and clouds send lightning from the sky
upon the Earth it does rain fire
The embers to great flames give birth
creating, truly, Hell on Earth
as Nature burns us in her ire
The flames, they jump from tree to town
burn our pride, with our houses, down
the Earth becomes our funeral pyre
(solo - Junior)
And so the land is clothed in flame
And all the world cries out in pain
And yet the blood, it leaves no stain
When all is cool, the dusty plain
Shall bring forth life to gentle rain
Thus shall the world be born again
(solos - Joe & Mole)
credits
from The Sleepy Hollow Years,
track released October 31, 2010
music - Schwarz, Dell, Castiel, Melick
internal guitar solos - Tom Catuosco
end solos - Joe and Matt
Matthew H Schwarz moves between (and combines) the musical genres of classical, progressive rock, traditional and original
folk, and heavy metal. His main instruments are guitar, harp, and flute. Sheet music can be found at www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/matthew-h-schwarz-sheet-music/3006990. ...more
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