Songs of Death: Commentary (by Paul Sehnen)

"Songs of Death" is both an attempt at social commentary and an attempt at self expression. It is a rant by a musician who, aging and not yet reaching a wide audience, is looking on in curiosity and at times dismay at his peers in music who are reaching a wide audience. It questions the messages which those musicians communicate, and questions how much influence those messages actually have over their audiences. It suggests what messages the author himself might choose to communicate if he were given an audience, and questions whether or not those messages would be commercially consumed. It ends with an expression of frustration and resignation, although in real life the author is far from resigning.

This song, like its author, may suffer from some contradictions, seeming or real. Just as a cast member of the film Three Kings described that film as being both a war movie and an anti-war movie, "Songs of Death" may arguably be at once a heavy metal song and an anti-metal song. It is meant to express not just the author's human desires but also his human confusion and frustration. It is not intended as a rant against free speech, and for the record let it be known that the author has often found himself enjoying tunes by both metal artists named in the song, even though he does sometimes wonder as to their intentions.

The music for "Songs of Death" was inspired, at least in part, by the music of Dishwalla's hit single "Counting Blue Cars," which I consider an excellently crafted modern rock tune. Beneath its gutsy lead vocals, "Counting Blue Cars" also has, in my opinion, a beautifully textured rhythm guitar part, made beautiful in part by rich chord voicings which stack additional "blue" or "green" notes atop the standard 1-3-5 or 1-5 notes of classical or traditional chords or triads. If there is such a thing as a "Paul Sehnen" sound, then one of the components of that sound is surely this technique of voicing chords paranormally, as I rarely play major triads if I can help it. In particular, the first and final rhythm sections of "Songs of Death" employ three chords which are very similar to if not the same as those three chords used by Dishwalla in the verse of "Counting Blue Cars." I consider the work sufficiently different as the chord sequence of the first and final sections of "Songs of Death" incorporates a fourth chord -- which itself may employ the harmonic minor of the key? -- and also has a different rhythm pattern as compared to "Counting Blue Cars." Additionally, past the bridge, the center section of "Songs of Death" relies on a sequence of four different chords with a different rhythm pattern. The four chord sequence of the center section is meant to have a more optimistic sound than the four chord sequence of the first and final sections, in parallel with the more optimistic musings of the lyrics of the center section.