Suffer Age

The lyrics to this song were written by Dino. It's about John Wayne Gacy. That's all you need to know.

John Wayne Gacy was a serial killer.

First and best Fear Factory song.

This one of my favorite F.F. songs; it's unfortunate that it doesn't get more recognition. Yes, it is indeed about John Gacy. The voices are labeled as "youthful" because Gacy went exclusively after younger men and boys. Furthermore, they are "below John's floors" which is where he buried them--underneath his house. I think that "draining scientific minds" may refer to the psychiatric field's inability to understand what went wrong with him. For example, they actually studied Gacy's brain postmortem and found absolutely nothing visibly/overtly abnormal about the brain. I think that "God's vision destroyed" may have a double meaning. On the one hand, I think it is stating that Gacy has destroyed "one of God's children." But it may also refer to the fact that he lusted after men and boys in general. As we all know, many world religions have taken the stance that homosexual acts in them of themselves are "sinful." Thus, according to these individuals, perhaps even Gacy's sexual actions alone were "going against God." In these peoples' minds, it would not be against God just because it was non-consensual but for the mere fact that it was MALES that Gacy had sex with. I don't think that F.F. is actually taking up for this viewpoint and neither am I; I think they're just using this angle as so as to emphasize even more chaos that probably went on regarding this story. With regards to the "sinister joker" line, this is in reference to Gacy's side gig as a clown. Finally, I think that the "Suffer Age" title itself as two meanings. Obviously, it's a play on words from the word "suffrage." The word has been separated out into two words in order to convey the idea that these boys are suffering on account of their age. If they weren't youthful, Gacy would not have been interested in them and thus they would have been spared. But I think that the original word "suffrage" has significance as well. This word is most often used in the context of the women's movement--i.e. "women's suffrage." I think that this has significance here because Gacy himself was labeled "girly" by his father who did not approve of his feminine personality traits. In fact, this bothered Gacy so much that he tried to cover up his homosexuality as much as he did the murders. Years after his imprisonment, he always maintained that he was not gay even though the police and the whole world knew that he sodomized these boys before he killed them. Masterful play on words here on the part of Dino. My personal feeling is that this is one of F.F.'s most underappreciated tunes. The musical assault here is as nuts as the lyric even by heavy metal standards. Herrera's drumming especially stands out for me here and of course, Burt's voice is unreal.