Matt Shadows their lead singer says the song was written as per request from the developers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Watching the initial trailers for the game & looking at production sketches reminded him of the 'S-Town' podcast & its main protagonist, John B. McLemore. Matt also comments specifically on the lyrics: "I decided that the lyrics would shadow McLemore's life." In 2012, antiquarian horologist John B. McLemore sent an email to the staff of the show 'This American Life' asking them to investigate an alleged murder in his hometown of Woodstock, Alabama, a place McLemore claimed to despise. After a year of exchanging emails & several months of conversation with McLemore, producer Brian Reed traveled to Woodstock to investigate. Reed investigated the crime & eventually found that no such murder took place, though he struck up a friendship with the depressed but colorful character of McLemore. He recorded conversations with McLemore & other people in Woodstock. McLemore killed himself by drinking potassium cyanide on June 22, 2015 while the podcast was still in production. In the narrative of the podcast, this occurs at the end of the second episode; subsequent episodes deal with the fallout from McLemore's death while exploring more of McLemore's life & character.
So would you tell me now
Are life and death a symmetry
Balanced on scales
Neither side chosen
And could these moments
Balance out against eternity
Promise inferred
Words never spoken
My life is burning
Could you read by the light
Letters I've written
Never to follow
Poets and madmen
All defy reason
Still in my mind I know
I want to live my life with you
Dying hard
Play my whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
And in your arctic night
You contemplate eternity
Walking on water
Frozen in silence
And in that moment would you
Turn around and turn to me
Laughing away night's darker tyrants
My life is burning
Could you read by the light
Letters I've written
Never to follow
Poets and madmen
All defy reason
Still in my mind I know
I want to live my life with you
Dying hard
Play in my whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
Some nights I spend alone inside my head
But it's better than losing it
And if you want to turn your life around
It's your life you're choosing it
I want to spend my life with you
Dying hard
Play the whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
Are life and death a symmetry
Balanced on scales
Neither side chosen
And could these moments
Balance out against eternity
Promise inferred
Words never spoken
My life is burning
Could you read by the light
Letters I've written
Never to follow
Poets and madmen
All defy reason
Still in my mind I know
I want to live my life with you
Dying hard
Play my whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
And in your arctic night
You contemplate eternity
Walking on water
Frozen in silence
And in that moment would you
Turn around and turn to me
Laughing away night's darker tyrants
My life is burning
Could you read by the light
Letters I've written
Never to follow
Poets and madmen
All defy reason
Still in my mind I know
I want to live my life with you
Dying hard
Play in my whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
Some nights I spend alone inside my head
But it's better than losing it
And if you want to turn your life around
It's your life you're choosing it
I want to spend my life with you
Dying hard
Play the whole hand until it's through
Dying hard
Lyrics submitted by Seven
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