Heretic Pride[1]
Lyrics
Well they come and pull me from my house
And they drag my body through the streets
And the sun’s so hot I think I’ll catch fire and burn up
In the summer air so moist and sweet
And the people all come out to cheer
Rocks in the pathway break my skin
And there’s honeysuckle on the faint breeze today
With every breath I’m drawing in
I want to cry out but I don’t scream and I don’t shout
And I feel so proud to be alive
And I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives
Crowds grow denser by the second
As we near the center of the town
And they dig a trench right in the main square right there
And they pick me up and throw me down
And I start laughing like a child
And I mark their faces one by one[2]
Transfiguration’s gonna come for me at last
And I will burn hotter than the sun
I’ve waited so long and now I taste jasmine on my tongue
And I feel so proud to be alive
And I feel so proud when the reckoning arrives
Banter
- I didn't know that I had ripped it off... I'm not trying to get away with anything. But, I wrote it in a notebook at some point, where I was storing titles... And I was like, 'That's just too good a phrase, you can't have made that up.' And I started combing through all my stuff to figure it out... Aura Noir is this sort of black-slash-thrash band, and they had this phrase, 'heretic pride', in one of their lyrics, and I had unconsciously lifted it and made what I took from it the subject of my song. (2008-03-11)
- This is a song about how sometimes you reach a point where you know they're going to kill you. And when you come to that point, for a while, you feel resentful about it because you don't want to die. But then, you start to really settle into your role as the person who must be killed and start to say to yourself, Yeah, when they kill me, I hope my blood gets on them. That's going to be awesome; to see the gore from my innards spattering their guilty, filthy faces as they destroy me from top to bottom. Man, I wish they would do it today. They just need to stop putting it off. They think I don't know that they’re coming. (2008-10-14)
- This is a song about the ardent wish of all we Catholics, and former Catholics, to be burned alive in front of people, so that others may know that we suffered. (2013-06-15)
- [In which JD introduces a cool new heresy called "Jesus Christ was A Literal Vampire] We're gonna attempt one more. We've got a couple, old reliables that we could pull out, but instead, we're gonna play this one that we've never played before as a four-piece. I don't know if Matt's even ever heard it. But it's the song that's in my heart. Because the stone has been rolled away, and there's nobody in the cave when there was somebody last night, when vampires walked the earth, seeking the blood of innocent victims, converting them one by one by one. (2015-04-04)
- This is a song about lighting the saints on fire. (2018-05-29)
Live Performances
Footnotes
1. "Title unconsciously cribbed from some Aura Noir lyrics — I am always happy to learn that black metal phrasings have burrowed their way into my subconscious. You could call this song a persecution fantasy, but really, who can even say the word 'fantasy' without flinching? Not me, and I have a stronger stomach than most. Spoiler alert: the main character here will not live long after he gets done lauding his imminent demise." — Heretic Pride press kit
"But that song, the title track, that's about a guy really getting into how he's about to suffer a really painful death. When people talk about 'living life to the fullest' they often mean they're gonna have a bitchin' weekend or whatever, or an intense relationship, but to me, you know who lived life to the fullest? Martyrs. People who got thrown to lions and had to listen to tens of thousand of people applauding while the lions ate them alive. Those are guys who are really drinking life to the lees, right? So that's what heretic pride is - really enthusiastic role acceptance." — Sam Means Interviews John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats (2008).↩
2. "one by one by one by one" (2013-06-05)↩