Grinder's conception started with a toilet break.
That's as good a way to start a blog post as any, I guess. But it's true. The first line of the lyrics, 'Early masturbation spawns a premature nation', popped into my mind when I was on a piss break at work, probably inspired by Therapy?'s wicked Femtex from their Troublegum album I was listening to around that time. When I returned to my computer I wrote it down and started working on expanding it.
The text focuses on how humanity is doing its absolute best to destroy itself, what with despots and other misguided egos trying to prove something to themselves, and they could not give a rat's ass about the cost to their own people. And the vanity, oh their vanity...
Getting off topic here.
The chorus, 'Bring on the meat machines – Feed them lead and bullet screams' portrays the armies marching towards their doom for the above mentioned self-proclaimed or elected leaders, locked in a pointless, endless struggle fuelled by the raging hatred of past misgivings.
And no one seems to learn or care. We are but simple machines, really. Animals, that can do the occasional amazing thing, but in the end we are just fighting over resources with our own kin for leaders that will die anyway, backed by states that will erode and in the names of deities that only exist in the collective minds of people. It's our basic programming, it's what makes our motor run, we are the meat machines.
And the frustration that builds in me when seeing the hopelessness of everything that we are building towards, culminates in the final line of the chorus: 'And grind away mankind'. Humanity is ready to destroy itself, who am I to complain, right?
The awesome razordoll banner mounted on the 2013 SZIN stage.
Now, back in 2008 when I wrote the text, István and me used to work in the same office. When I showed him the lyrics at the end of the day, he said he can't really understand what I'm trying to portray with the text, he called it a mess of mumbo-jumbo, or something along those lines.
Anyway, when I got home that evening I sat down and wrote and recorded the two main riffs of the song. When I showed it to him the next day, he seemed to like it, and no longer cared about the lyrics afterward.
The sample from a newscast that made it to the final recording was added early on to recordings we made.
When I showed the idea to the rest of the band they said it was missing a bridge part, so Laci and István came up with the Rage Against the Machine-y bridge part, which I think fit in perfectly with the rest of the song. I also really love the drums on the recorded version written and played by Tomi, our first drummer.
I wanted to add more of a fuzz-like sound to the song, think the Smashing Pumkins' beautifully noisy Mellon Collie and the Infinte Sadness double disc for the sounds I was going for, but we had neither the right pedals, nor the general understanding that fuzz was the way to go.
Hm, I might do a new recording of Grinder with some fresh sounds, now that I come to think of it.
Anyway, back on topic, Grinder became one of my favourite tunes off dysnomia, and playing it live is really fun, so I'll leave you with that, and the full lyrics after the song.
Grinder (from 2009's dysnomia)
Early masturbation spawns a premature nation
All the endless confrontation
From the cradle to the darkest grave
So hail the celebration of forfeit and blind castration
All the pointless incarnations
Of dead leaders and their lonely fate
Bring on the meat machines!
(Feed them lead and bullet screams)
Bring on the meat machines!
And grind away mankind!
Bring on the bleak salvation of the mindless population
I want more complication
And a little love to desecrate
Bring on the meat machines!
(Feed them lead and bullet screams)
Bring on the meat machines!
(Feed them lead and bullet screams)
Bring on the meat machines!
(Feed them lead and bullet screams)
Bring on the meat machines!
And grind away mankind!