Where Is The Line?

Album: Billy Talent II (2006)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song talks about how kids are following stereotypes and not being themselves. The song encourages them to act as individuals. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Ryan - Ottawa, Canada
  • "Where Is the Line?" grew out of the band's frustration with Toronto's indie scene, which had never fully embraced them despite a decade of paying dues in local clubs before signing with Warner/Atlantic. "It's only indirectly about NOW [Magazine]... "We were independent for 10 years in this city and slugged it out and played every f---ing club a million and one times," frontman Ben Kowalewicz told NOW Toronto. "And especially when we were younger, we looked up to NOW, cuz NOW would do reviews of independent bands, which was great. But we always got slagged."

    After they got signed, Kowalewicz said, "We would walk into bars after... and people would give us dirty looks and say mean stuff to us. And we'd be like, 'Hey man, we've paid our dues, mothaf---er!'"

    Guitarist Ian D'Sa echoed the sentiment: "We were always just a rock band, but we had pop sensibilities, and I don't think people knew how to peg us. We didn't get press from any magazines for years."
  • Toronto hardcore band F---ed Up mistakenly believed "Where Is the Line?" was written about them, sparking a short-lived rivalry. It stemmed from an incident at the Bovine Sexclub, Ian D'Sa's regular Toronto haunt, where F---ed Up happened to be playing when D'Sa dropped in to meet friends. Some members of F---ed Up allegedly gave him grief and made comments about Billy Talent from the stage. F---ed Up then apparently retaliated by writing their own song, "The Line," believing Billy Talent's track was aimed at them.

    "They thought that we wrote a song called 'Where's the Line' on our album about them," Kowalewicz told Punknews. "When really that song is about NOW Magazine and the hipsters/scenesters in Toronto. It has nothing to do with F---ed Up. Nothing. Zero. They were not in mind... We have no bad blood towards them, we think they're a great band."

Comments: 2

  • Dennis from Toronto, OnI don't know if I am allowed to tell you the meaning of this song. I can tell you it is about the fakes in the industry.
  • Lachlan from Auckland, Neutral ZoneWhere is the line is a great song with a a great message ROCK ON BILL TALENT
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