Kazmi
Old Lie
Old Lie is a song with inspirations from death/black/thrash metal and hardcore. It was inspired by pieces of literature produced in the aftermath of World War 1 that I found particularly moving.
The opening spoken word section of the song goes: "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori / it is sweet and fitting, to die for one's country". The latin phrase and subsequent translation is taken from Owen Wilfred's poem, Dulce et Decorum Est. The phrase itself was originally attributed to the Roman poet Horace, who originally wrote it to motivate people to go to war. In Wilfred's poem, he referred to the phrase as "the old lie" (hence the title of the song) and used it to condemn war in a poem that showcased the horrors of WW1 that he experienced firsthand.
The lyrics and music were inspired by an excerpt from the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. In it, the protagonist who is a frontline soldier during WWI who enlisted in the army with his classmates. He recalls a classmate named Behm who did not want to enlist, but was peer pressured into it and sent to the front. After a failed attack, his comrades believed him to be dead, but it turned out he was wounded in no man's land. He had been blinded by his wounds and bled out to a painful death in the mud.
I choose to tell this story in a surreal way, keeping the lyrics vague and music aggressive to reflect what must have been the journey to Behm's death, culminating in an epic melodic ending.
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