Rise of the Melancholy Empire

Album: Prayers for the Damned, Vol. 1 (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • The lyrics for this song were inspired by the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks after DJ Ashba and James Michael sent a Motley-touring Nikki Sixx some music they'd been "tinkering with."

    Sixx was told the news by Motley's tour manager "[ I] heard about the Paris attacks," he recalled to Jam! Music. "Our merch guy that had been with us was the merch guy who was killed. There was Paris record company people that I had just met with who were killed... So even though I wasn't there, all of us were like devastated."

    Sixx headed back to his hotel and started writing. "I remember sitting there, looking out the window and it was this bleak, cold, fall, snowy night in Germany with just this one white light outside and I just wrote the lyrics to Rise of the Melancholy Empire... And very much like all Sixx: A.M. songs, the chorus is revealing that there is hope."

    Michael added: "It was just a perfect way to address such a tragic thing. And also to focus on getting through it."

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