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A Look at the Lyrics – After The Fall “Welcome to the New S.A.”

On this week’s “A Look at the Lyrics” we learn the very in depth meaning behind the song from Pittsburgh rock veterans After The Fall- “New S.A.”.  Read what lead singer Doug has to say about their new song and watch the lyric video.  Show some love, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

“New S.A.” is a song about where we are as a country at this point in
time.  Our band, After the Fall, isn’t known as a “political band”, nor
were we shooting to become one when this song came to be.  It’s not a
song that leans one way, politically, or another, it’s from the
viewpoint of an average American citizen about how crazy our country has
become.  For at least the past 4 years, if not even longer, it seems
that everything in American life revolves around politics.  Friendships
are made, and destroyed, by politics, and with the internet, politics
has now become almost everywhere nowadays.  In addition, it also seems
that everyone and their brother now not only has a foot in politics, but
that it’s become part of their identity.  Fortunately, or unfortunately,
depending on how you see it, I suppose, part of our daily reality
oftentimes seeps into our minds and consciences.  When this happens, and
you’re a person who writes songs, sometimes these things make great
topics for lyrical content.  Sometimes, it’s just that we’re so
inundated with a certain aspect of that reality, that it’s almost
inescapable.  In the case of “New S.A.”, it was a bit of both.

When I write songs, typically I start with the music, get that all
worked out, then move onto the vocal melodies, and lastly, they lyrics.
I do this so that I can kind of get a vibe for what sort of emotion the
music evokes, be it sad, happy, angry, etc.  It’s not very often that I
deviate from that, and that’s simply because most of the songs come to
me that way.  If I am stumped and need to write something, I may sit
down and try to force myself to write something, but most of the time,
either the music or a vocal melody comes to me first, and I start there.
It’s even MORE rare that I get an entire song all at once (I think I
can count on one hand the times that’s happened), this was one of those
rare times, which helped me to grasp just how special this song may be.

I was getting ready to shower, which is where I often have the majority
of my best song ideas at, and was trying to post something on Facebook.
It was around the time when Hilary Clinton’s emails were leaking out on
Wikileaks.  I had found the links to them on reddit, and found what I
was reading fascinating.  At this point, I wasn’t even sure who I would
vote for yet, but with everything surrounding her whole “missing
emails”, and with them now being leaked out to the public, I thought
this was quite unbelievable!  There were also news stories being
written, in real time, as this was happening.  I felt compelled to share
one of these stories on Facebook, and tried to do just that.  Upon
attempting to do this, I found that my post wouldn’t publish.  It wasn’t
outright rejected, it went through, but the resulting post was sort of
“transparent”, and wasn’t viewable by the public.  I had never had this
happen before, and couldn’t figure out any reason as to why this would
happen.  I tried a few other links, some pertaining to this same story,
some having nothing to do with the story at all. I found that any links
having to do with this story wouldn’t post, while any links having to do
with anything else would.  Keep in mind, these weren’t “untrustworthy”
sites either, I’m talking mainstream news outlets, and they were all
being blocked.  I did a little research into this matter, and found that
this wasn’t uncommon behavior for Facebook, far from it!  Many people
have had this happen to them, particularly when the subject matter
revolved around “touchy” political issues.  I then did what any good
citizen would do, I posted the links on Twitter instead, which is linked
to my Facebook account, thus getting them published on both platforms.
Lol!

I used to publish a lot of political things on my social media, but with
how divided our country was becoming, and with how politics were being
blatantly used to leverage us against one another, I had kind of gotten
away from doing it as much at this point.  I also saw that most people
really didn’t care too much, which kind of saddened me a bit.  I’m of
the opinion that it’s all of our responsibility to at least pay a little
attention to what’s going on in our country, as we need to know this
stuff to vote responsibly, which is also our responsibility as citizens
of this country.  I was also reading about something called The Franklin
Scandal at the time, which was this crazy fiasco that happened in our
country in the late 80s – early 90s, but dated back to the 70s.  To sum
it up, it was about a pedophelia ring, run by a man named Lawrence King,
that was being used to ensnare and blackmail politicians of the time.
It was some surreal stuff, and really made me start to look at things
that go on in our country beneath the surface.

As I got into the shower that day, it was everything that I just
described that was swirling through my head.  I was pissed about
Facebook’s attempt at censorship, how crooked our government had gotten,
how we as citizens aren’t always informed enough, amongst numerous other
things.  Within minutes of stepping into the shower, I had the music,
the melody, and the lyrics, already coming into my mind.  I hurried
through the shower, and went downstairs to get my guitar.  Needless to
say, I finished the song, rather quickly too, and even had the title to
go along with it!  Again, the way songs come to me is normally not like
this at all, and I knew that I had to show the fellas in the band as
soon as I could.  The rest is U.S. history (shameless, cheesy pun
intended)!

-Doug

 

 

 

“New S.A.”

Sit down

Shut up
And open up is what they say
So they can feed you your brain
You think
Your life’s
A game that you are playing now
But it’s you who’s getting played

Safe space
Screaming race
What has happened to this place
This ain’t the place I was raised
Start wars

Prison doors
Help to raise the profits more
Your attention they’ll fray

So you’ll look away

Welcome to the nightmare that they warned would come
Welcome to the end of days
Welcome to things you can’t believe are said and done
Welcome

Welcome to the New S.A.

Look at

All of these people
Tell me what you see
I see a pussy parade
They bitch
And moan
How bad their situation is
But spewing hate won’t bring change

Free speech
Overreach
Take a shot of freedom bleach
It’s liquid courage that saves
Wound tight
Black or white
Left or right
It’s all our fight
We’ll never be brave
While living as slaves

Welcome to the nightmare that they warned would come
Welcome to the end of days
Welcome to things you can’t believe are said and done
Welcome
Welcome to the New S.A.

Trump
Hilary
All just a bunch of fuckin puppets
If George Washington were here
He’d kick all your fuckin asses

From sea to shining sea
They’re raping our liberty
Yet not an ounce of dismay
Lawrence King
Franklin
Look it up and learn the sin
Of this land where we stay
And the freedoms we gave away

Welcome to the nightmare that they warned would come
Welcome to the end of days
Welcome to things you can’t believe are said and done
Welcome
Welcome to the New S.
Welcome to our paradise under the gun
Where being criminal pays
Welcome to where life ends before it’s just begun
Welcome
Welcome to the New S.A.

 

You can find After The Fall on most music and social media platforms. Clink the links below!

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

 

open.spotify.com/album/55Gh1DePHAJcKfH7BGA8b1

 

 

About the Author
Reina is a photographer for First Angel Media, is the official Rock For Life Concert Series photographer and dabbles in graphic design. When she's not out at a local show you can find her at home with her family and three dogs Curlie, Peso and Scarlet.