Torches

Album: VII: Sturm und Drang (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • This chugging track is about Czech student Jan Palach, who burned himself alive in Prague's Wenceslas Square in 1969 to protest the occupation of Soviet forces. The song was inspired by Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe's visit to Palach's grave. "This guy wasn't mentally ill. He was just very upset that things had reached the point where he wanted to wake people out of their resignation, and it worked," Blythe told Billboard magazine. "He lit himself on fire, and he became a symbol of free thought and dissidence during the rest of the communist era there, which was pretty brutal on the Czechs."

    "It made me think, 'God, how upset do you have to be about something to set yourself on fire?' I did some more research about politically motivated self-immolations," he added. "They're still going on to this day, like Tibetans are doing it over their treatment [from] China. The Vietnamese monks did it during the Vietnam War. There's a long history of it."
  • The other voice you hear on the song is that of The Dillinger Escape Plan's Greg Puciato.

Comments: 1

  • Cicatricekodeia from Liverpool UkI absolutely love this song..genius. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up
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