Solway Firth

Album: We Are Not Your Kind (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • The closing track of We Are Not Your Kind, "Solway Firth" finds Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor being ostracized. He feels he has been misunderstood and has become a scapegoat.

    Today, up on this hill, I'm counting all the killers
    They sway as they swarm, a look of gluttons in their eyes
    They mutter as the body loses warmth
    They pick your bones like locks inside a tomb


    The sole lyric on We Are Not Your Kind's opening track, "Insert Coin," is also "counting all the killers."
  • The Solway Firth is a coastal water that forms part of the border between England and Scotland. The name does not appear in the song's lyrics but may be a reference to the "Solway Firth Spaceman," a 1964 photo of a little girl taken near the Solway Firth that shows a background figure wearing what appears to be a space suit. The photographer insisted the spaceman wasn't there when he took the picture. The mysterious spacemen who shouldn't be there links in with the song's subject matter of a false portrayal.
  • The song ends with the lines:

    I guess I got what I wanted
    Another needle in the back through purified scarification
    It wasn't somebody else, you… did it to me
    You want a real smile?
    I haven't smiled in years


    Taylor told Loudwire the song's last line is the most revealing:

    "That's the one that is probably the most real thing I've ever written. And that in itself is the story of a man who has had to walk a line and put on that face even in the light or shadow of dealing with not only outside issues, but inside issues."

    Taylor went on to explain that the line addresses the physical and clinical depression that he's battled all his life. "You're made to feel like it's not true and that you have to deny it because they don't want to admit there's an issue," he said. "That's even worse."

    "Now you find yourself in this spiral in which you can't even say that you're hurting because no one's listening," Taylor added. "When everything that happens is made to feel like it's your fault then what do you get right? So that last line is the album closer for a reason."
  • When Slipknot percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan heard the "I haven't smiled" lyric, he told Taylor it needed to be the last sentiment spoken on this album.

    "Nothing can follow that line. Anybody who's going through s--t on this planet, that's a way of saying it, ending it, getting up and changing your potential immediately," Clown explained to Apple Music. "And there's this little false ending before it. So you're like whisked away for a moment, and then it's like, bam! You get the biggest smack in the face, and it's up to you to get up and believe that you have control to change your destiny."
  • Slipknot performed the song live for the first time during their August 11, 2019 gig at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois. They inserted the track into their setlist between "Before I Forget" and "The Heretic Anthem."
  • The song's unsettling music video was directed by Clown. It combines footage from Slipknot's early summer 2019 European tour with scenes from Amazon Prime's superhero show The Boys.

Comments: 4

  • David Dhd from NyThe ability to take themselves and their fans and bypass the depressed part of depression and jump right into a "controlled" Rage is second to none! But they impress and amaze me the most by how they are able "beat around the bush" in metaphors yet steer you right to the culprits. I've been more sure about who truly is "my kind" because they haven't stopped getting my attention since 95! I deny eve The Lie is heard! Say 10 to Luci for Me!
  • Lucifer Klaus from WisconsinI've listened to Solway Firth an upwards of 500 times and it still manages to give me the chills. It can get you to reflect on past trauma while simultaneously inspiring you to overcome it and conquer the world. Not a millisecond of wasted noise. My favorite song of all time.
  • A Canuck from CanadaThis song is just unreal to me. I haven't gotten enough of it since it's release 2 years ago.
    But the interpretation of it is what gets me here.
    Of course art is always supposed to speak to people in different unique ways, but in the case of many songs on the WANYK album... WOW can you ever feel the raw emotion Corey has and what he went through with his ex wife. This came from deep, and dang does it feel good to listen this music
  • Pappy from HoustonNever have i listened to a song more than this one.
    This group is outstanding in their ability to act as a machine. The vocals are on point, drumming is unheard of and the guitar and bass is simply astonishing. DJ Starscream and Craig are the cherry on top. A very great band.
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