Pain

Album: Cold World (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This blistering track was released as the lead single from Of Mice And Men's Cold World album. The band performed the tune live for the first time on June 28, 2016 at the opening show of the group's tour with Slipknot and Marilyn Manson in Nashville, Tennessee.
  • Frontman Austin Carlile told the story behind the song to Alternative Press:

    "It's called 'Pain' because that is what it's about: It talks about my personal journey of the last few years and how I relate that to the current state of the world that we live in now. People face pain every day, whether it be physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, metaphysically, metaphorically—everything. It's something we wanted to touch on because it's been such a big part of my life and pain in general has been something I have been living and breathing for the past 12, 15 years."
  • Carlile suffers from Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the connective tissue of the body. This song is about his struggles with the condition. He told TeamRock:

    "I wake up every day in pain. All my joints get swollen, and sometimes I can't feel my legs or different parts of my body, and sometimes I can't function in the morning unless I take a hot shower and do all my exercises. It's a constant struggle for me.

    With the band, through St. Jude [Children's Research Hospital] or The Marfan Foundation or Living The Dream Foundation, we've met a lot of people that are in a lot of severe physical pain, and I wanted to write a song for myself and for them to embody what that feels like."

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