In The Blood

Album: Deluxe (1995)
Charted: 48
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Songfacts®:

  • A popular track from the first Better Than Ezra album, "In The Blood" is one of the more cryptic songs out there, made more confusing because the title doesn't show up in the lyrics. The song finds lead singer Kevin Griffin, who wrote the track, asking a series of questions:

    How can you be so warm?
    How can you know what I feel?

    Who did you love before?
    Who did they love before you?


    He is addressing a man who is dying of AIDS, and the title refers to the disease being literally in his blood. In his 2016 Songfacts interview, Griffin explained: "That song is about a good friend who had AIDS. He got HIV and AIDS and he passed away in '94, '95. And it was literally about what's in your blood, and what we give to one another emotionally and through experience. But also just spot-on hitting the nail on the head physically. I never really explained that song, because it was from real life. But that's what it's about."

    The person with AIDS was the uncle of the girl Griffin was dating.
  • The 1992 Catherine Wheel song "Black Metallic" was an influence on this track. In addition to the musical nod, the lyrical phrasing is also similar with the refrain "Black Metallic" refrain "It's the color of your skin" echoed on "In The Blood" in lines like, "It's the way you move your hands" and "It's the way you understand."

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