You know the song I'm talking about. It's seven and a half minutes long. It's the song people always ask guitarists to play. It was the ultimate song to beat in Guitar Hero 3. That's right, I'm talking about "Through the Fire and Flames" by Dragonforce.
What makes this song so important? Everybody knows the melody, but few people know the lyrics. If we take a step back to look at what it is about, it becomes much deeper. It is one of the most well-known and under-appreciated songs of the current generation. The song is seemingly about a long battle, which is something everyone can associate with. We can see evidence of this battle in a few spots:
"Fighting hard, fighting on for the steel," is obviously the literal fight.
"The scattered souls will feel the hell, bodies wasted on the shores." This is a recurring theme of the song, which brings to light the negativity and darkness of the death involved with war. Every battle, personal or physical, includes some sort of loss. It may not be the physical loss of life, but the loss of time, inspiration, and attachment count just as well.
"So far away we wait for the day," becomes the longing call of the song. "So far away" is about the time it takes for the end of the battle to come. "The day" is the final day of the battle, when they can all finally stop fighting. The end isn't always in sight, but it is always coming no matter how far it is.
The aspect of the song that I personally identify with is the inspirational stanzas. I chose four that stand out to me in the song as being a cry for action and intensity:
"As the red day is dawning, and the lightning cracks the sky, they'll raise their hands to the heavens above with resentment in their eyes."
"Lost inside you'll never find, lost within my own mind, day after day this misery must go on."
"Far beyond the sundown, far beyond the moonlight, deep inside our hearts and all our souls."
"So now we fly ever free, we're free before the thunderstorm, on towards the wilderness our quest carries on."
The emotions and impulses that these lines bring are often overlooked by listeners because of the extravagant, screeching guitar solos and melodies. These stanzas are a call to action. If we stop and take a second to listen to the lyrics, however, we can come away from the song with much more than whiplash from too-much-headbanging-itis.
