Story Behind The Song

I was in debt, jobless and bandless. I recorded in a garage and did the vocals in a shed with my computer on a piece of plywood, which was sitting on a wheel barrow. I had finished school and no business/job endeavors were interesting me. I knew it was time to start making money or else who knows what. I had this music degree in classical music and some jazz instruction, but no job to start paying off bills. It seemed hopeless. Going for blood is a metaphor for stepping on people coldly to get what you want in a capitalist society. No one cares what you do wrong, money's our only measure of success it seems. It's hard to find something your 'soul will allow' and you have to work hard to get anywhere that is actually worth anything. I was past doing 'anything for anyone else' i needed to do something to make sure i'd be okay. I saw a movie with a jack white song and it inspired me to record a drum track that instant and I recorded all the other instruments that night. I wrote the lyrics on the spot the next day. I watched the beaver with Gibson which helped me visualize being afraid of one's own self and afraid to exist in the world. You have to do something or else you'll be the 'victim of a landslide.'

Song Description

This song came together fast and was written in the studio so to speak and was a departure from the Merchants of Solace which is what my band is called. The vocals are somewhat Pantera-esque and the music is hard and fast. There is no repeated words in the chorus, it's just high momentum verses. The mood is angry with some hope for the future but there are forces working against me and making me squirm. I want to do something worthwhile, but what, and how, and why. Things get more and more real as life goes on, and they have the possibility of getting dire. So damn the consequences and do something full tilt. Conform? Be couragious? Be yourself? Be someone else? Don't just do nothing. Get out of the rut and live! Don't avoid life.

Lyrics

Gotta go for blood,
get it, do it now.
Do it for yourself,
nobody cares how
Do it any way
your soul will allow
Do it till your engines quit
and there's a crack in your bow

others have done more with less, still others have done less with more
get an inside track,
go around back
if there's a problem then you bust down the door

gotta go for blood no hesitation
all there is to fear is starvation
I'm just a cog in a mass of moving parts
either come out fighting
or get left in the dark.

oooo yeah

step towards the ledge and have a look down
into the dark part of yourself laying on the ground
afraid to move, afraid to start, afraid to fail
apt to burn the vessel before you set sail.

gotta go for broke
this ain't a fiction
break the very core of your addiction
lying to yourself and everyone else
don't do anything for anyone just do it for yourself

woooaahh yeah

the night confronts me with my own fears
breath deep and fight before i dissapear
nurse my thoughts and mind back to full health
ready to walk from the grave and out of my hell

we must confront the dark to make way for light
kick and scream,
don't go without a fight
the only consolation is you're free to decide
climb up to the top or be the victim of a landslide
landslide
landslide