Brace Yourself

Album: The Emergency EP (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Speaking about this song on News 4 in Jacksonville, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus frontman Ronnie Winter said the lyric was inspired by Linda, the mother of the band's guitarist, Josh Burke, who had battled cancer.

    "After she finished her treatments, rang the bell and defeated cancer, she had a long conversation with me and showed me a slideshow of all the things she had gone through," Winter said. "It was really crazy to watch. It was really a struggle for the family but it had a happy ending. It impacted me greatly and that's where the lyrics for the song came from."
  • Ronnie Winter's Christian faith informs many of his lyrics, so in these lines he could be indicating how embracing God was the key to Linda's fight with cancer:

    Break the glass in case of emergency
    Open your arms to me
  • The song was released on March 31, 2020, just weeks into the Coronavirus pandemic. There is a lot of pandemic imagery in the song, particularly the line "Take caution when breathing in," but that was coincidental - the song was written before lockdown.

    The band, though, decided to embrace this interpretation with a lyric video filled with microbial visuals and this message:

    "There's no doubt about synergy with the lyrics of this song and current events. Many people are still in denial of the current Global Pandemic and we implore them to follow instructions on social space and personal safety measures."

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