Song Meanings

Sympaticus
Sympaticus is a love song, while actually it is not. The song is about a substanse called “Inderal” that must have been made specifically for me and my nervous system. It came to a point where I thought I couldn’t live a normal life without it. But I managed to quit and prove I didn’t need it…but now I’m hooked again. Love it.

13th Generation
This is an old song that I wrote as a pissed off and bored teenager. The lyrics are pretty straight forward. My life then was all about drinking and breaking stuff.

Stuck
It’s about redundancy, about having a sense of being unique but to come to terms with the fact that you’re just like eveyone else, working 9-5, drowning in the gray mass and grasping to stick out just to survive.

The Dreamer
The Dreamer is sort of a continuation of the previous track “Stuck”. The title was originally going to be “Revolutionary Road” because of the scene in the movie when people are on their way to work and everyone’s looking exactly the same, gray and just dead inside. That was so spot on. My greatest  fear ever.

Hearts at War
I had a big fight with my girlfriend and I just figured it would be a great theme for a song. The lyrics tell the story of how things can be at home. I’m sure a lot of people can relate.

Bitter End
A friend of mine came close to breaking up with his girlfriend and I wrote a song about it. I kind of tried to relate to it and so I put a lot of my own emotions in there. It’s a sad song. The chorus is simple: “it used to be so good, but now it is so bad” but I kind of like it. It’s almost like, one picture say’s more than a thousand words.

Not My Problem
It’s a song written from the perspective of a person observing a junkie. This spectator is the typical middle class society and demonstrates the attitude towards the weak and beaten. I wrote this song while still in high school. I had a really strong sense of rebellion that most other kids did not have and I guess I could relate to the junkies and freaks more so than with the so called normal people.

Another Song About Being Lonely
I was sitting by the window late one night with the guitar in my hand when a strong sense of loneliness came over me. The song is what the title states – Another song about being lonely, because that is really all there is to it.

Belly Ache Love
A song written many years ago when I was a passionate teenager falling in love head over heals. I actually believe this is the first love song I ever wrote. It is very Green Day inspired. Very basic and straight forward.

Nightmare
As a kid I went through a period of anxiety and it took a lot of effort to calm myself down. I would shake in my bed and have cold sweats. This song came out of that experience and it is basically about darkness, fear and hopelesness.

Books of History
Another song written years ago. I was initially trying to make one statement but ended up in all kinds of directions where all three verses involves different subjects. A few people have misinterpreted the last verse as being revisionistic, which it is definitely not. 
The song is also an attempt to make people think as individuals and look at the world from a critical point of view without being stupid for that matter.

Washout
I was a troubled teenager and there was not a thing I hated more than school and authority. “Rebellion was all I had, and they will never understand” is the main theme of the song and I stand by that line and still feel that way today. The rebel in me never died but I have managed to somewhat gain control over it. I remember one teacher telling me “Daniel, you are a very charming kid, and I like you a lot, but you are out of control and I can’t have you here anymore”. That wasn’t news to me. I had succeded. I had to leave high school a couple of months prior to graduation. I still got grades but it wasn’t exactly a document I would wave in my moms face.

Salvation
A close friend was in part the inspiration for this song. The words are written as I believe that he percepts the world and his own situation, but still from my perspective how in turn I percept his views of the world. Get that?

Willie Go!
This is a tribute to my son. It’s very personal of course but I think most fathers can relate. The title “Willie Go!” really captures everything I see in my son.

Fairy Tail
…and this is a tribute to my family.

Cubital Fossa
The inspiration behind this song is Anthony Keidis and his book “Scar Tissue” which is one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. It had a big impact on me and I felt I could really relate to this person which I have never met. I have never even been a real fan of him or his music. But after reading the book I can’t help but feel we’re connected somehow. Weird, I know.

Death of a Nation
This is more or less a follow up to the song “Medal of Sorrow” from the album “My Lament“. Bosnia was in my mind for this song as well. There is a part in the song where I sing “I remember when we got the call / that my cousin had fallen and he was gone”. This line is refering to when in the middle of the night my family received a phone call that my 20 year old cousin had lost his life fighting in Bosnia.

Medal of Sorrow
This song is an anti-war statement. My cousin was killed during the war in Bosnia and I’ve seen the suffering his family had to go through and still go through everyday. What came out of it all? Somebody once said “victories don’t mean anything if they don’t last”, and they seldom do.

Sure, you can’t be naive and believe evil forces who wish other people harm to stop when you tell them to. It’s not that I don’t understand we have many young men and women to thank for our freedom of speech and democracy and so on. It’s just that war gets corrupted so easily. Leaders who use the ignorance of people to ignite wars just to win land or economical benefits. That’s my anti-war statement. Ironically this song is often missinterpreted as a pro-american, nationalistic song or whatever. That’s not the way it was written.

Sarsaparilla
I wrote this song out of boredom. It’s meant as a slap in the face of our lazy and spoiled generation, including myself. We bitch and moan over the dumbest things and yet we live in the most enlightened times ever.

The Truth
This song is pretty feverish and philosophical in a confusing way. It’s basically about trying to understand your own mind, to know where you are going and what you want of your life. The Truth is probably the “deepest” song on the record.

Carved in Oak
This song is dedicated to my girlfriend. The song is about the fear of losing her which I have had many nightmares over. When I came up with the song title I thought of a heart carved in oak with the name of two lovers in it. Oaks can last for hundreds of years and that’s how I feel about our love.

Ryan Ben O’Bay
Ryan is more or less about myself and my life during the teenage years. I was kind of rebellious as a kid and even though I had the greatest parents you could ever imagine, they still couldn’t do anything to stop me from living a self destructive life.

My Lament
I wrote this song when my sister was breaking up with her boyfriend, so basically this song is about her.

Chunky Monkey
This is yet another song about me as a teenager and my thoughts about work and lazyness. Basically the song is written through my parents eyes and how I imagine it must have been for them to cope with me.

Two Sides
I can’t recall I ever had the guts to ask someone out. I really suck at those things. This song is about a boy and a girl who like each other but both of them are very shy and it get’s in the way of what they truly want. What I am trying to say is that if you go for it, it will pay off in the end…I hope.

Spikes & Chains
I remember in high school a pretty girl came up to me and I sensed she was kind of into me. She asked me about my interests and stuff and then asked what kind of music I was into. Well, I knew from the very start my answer wasn’t going to be good enought, but hey, I’m not going to deny what I am. So I told her I was into punk and what kind of bands. What happened next is she turned and walked away, just like that. I’m really glad she did though. I’m better of without a shallow person like that anyways.

Black Heart
I wrote this during a period I was suffering from both depression and panic attacks. I was out of work and really at the bottom of the barrel. The music was a way to get things off my chest.

Loser of the Year
I was going to call this song “Thirteen” first, because the song is about being out of luck. You could say the song is about compulsive gambling. I used to throw lots of money on gambling until I realized some guy was getting rich on my naive dreams of fast money.

Liquor Hill
This is an old song I wrote back in 1994. I guess it speaks for itself. A hill, some buddies and booze.