The Dirt I'm Buried In

Album: Dance Devil Dance (2023)
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Songfacts®:

  • The lyrics for Avatar's "The Dirt I'm Buried In" revolve around singer Johannes Eckerström's feelings of isolation and despair. The song is about feeling like the world has turned its back on you and being buried alive by your own thoughts and feelings.
  • Eckerström wrote the song with the band's guitarists, Jonas "Kungen" Jarlsby, and Tim Öhrström. It was several years in the making and some parts span a whole decade.

    "It has this irresistible clean guitar lick, disco beats, and an anthemic chorus," said Eckerström to Apple Music. "You kind of struggle with letting a song just be what it wants to be sometimes. Then it became very emotionally significant, and we can already tell from reactions to it that it has become very significant for a lot of other people as well. I'm glad we set the baby bird free."
  • Avatar released "The Dirt I'm Buried In" through Thirty Tigers as the third single from Dance Devil Dance. The Swedish heavy metal band topped a Billboard chart for the first time when the song climbed to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay ranking dated September 2, 2023, after 31 weeks. It equaled the second-longest journey to the chart's summit, behind only the 40-week ascension of Trapt's "Headstrong." Young Guns' "Bones" also took 31 weeks to climb to the top.
  • Dance Devil Dance is Avatar's ninth studio album. The band self-produced the record with Jay Ruston (Stone Sour, Anthrax and Steel Panther). Ruston had served as the sole producer on Avatar Country (2018) and Hunter Gatherer (2020).

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