Cry of Achilles

Album: Fortress (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song opens with some acoustic guitar played by Myles Kennedy. Co-guitarist Mark Tremonti told MusicRadar.com: "When Myles and I were throwing ideas back and forth, he played me a fingerpicked bit on a nylon-string guitar. It was really great, and I just said to him, "Man, we've got to use that for an intro or incorporate it into one of the songs somehow.' We kind of put it on the back burner – things like that always seem to happen – but it was too good to forget about."

    Tremonti added: "Myles and I both take solos in the song. He takes the first one, the more elastic solo, and I take the second one. He's a great improvisational player; his bends and vibrato are so striking. My solo is more "stingy,' I guess, which is a nice complement to what he does."
  • The song title refers to Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Iliad who slayed the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. As a child he was taken by his mother Thetis by the heel and dipped into the River Styx. The intention was to make him invulnerable, but the heel in her hand remained dry making it his one weak spot. Achilles was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who shot him in his heel with an arrow.
  • The animated video centers on a giant fighting warrior whom villagers hope will protect them from a dark black creature. The clip was created by SiLee films, which was established in 2004 by Simon Ralph and Lee Parker in Nottingham, England.
  • Myles Kennedy explained the song's meaning to Artist Direct: "In a way, it's a carryover from AB III," he said. "It's coming at it from a disillusioned angle, but the chorus is that optimistic feeling of, 'Don't forget there's still beauty left in this world.' Given how dark the rest of the content is lyrically on the record, it's good to have moments of that optimism."

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