Werewolf Gimmick

Lyrics

I was not there for rehearsal, I don’t need it any more
When I show up just in time to pop you can clear the goddamn floor
Empty out the locker room, let me find my space
Let him who thinks he knows no fear look well upon my face
Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms
Know how a man becomes a beast when the wolfbane blooms

Sail past all the grasping hands, floodlights white and hot
Bring my vision into focus, find out what I’ve got
Some sniveling local babyface with an angle he can’t sell
Full werewolf off the buckle like an angel straight from hell
Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms
Run howling through the carnage when the wolfbane blooms

Half the city sound asleep and safe inside their beds
Get lost inside my thoughts and nearly tear his face to shreds
Blood pooling on the canvas as the atmosphere gets hushed
Bring your heroes to the wolf’s den, watch them all get crushed
Get told to maybe dial it back backstage later on
Everyone still in this building right now: dead before the dawn
Nameless bodies in unremembered rooms
The pure at heart go putrid when the wolfbane blooms

Banter

• [tuning happens and off mic discussion about it, Peter says some chords, etc]
  JD: Like I said, we have a new album coming out this week, but you can actually buy it early back there at the merch table, because we're outlaws. Living outside the law. We heard about the release date and said, well, we'll respect that if we feel like it, but you can't predict the mind of the outlaw. He's gonna do what he wants - he's a desperado. And you can ask him to come to his senses, but he'll be mindless, wandering out in the desert, staring directly at the sun, when people tell him not to, and what not. It's just the kind of outlaws that we are. Living that outlaw lifestyle and selling the record before the release date. With the blessing of our label. So, we got - I was just figuring out the chords to the bridge of this song, because it has a bridge with four chords in it, and two of em aren't in the rest of the song. This is a song about a guy. [woo!] Somebody told me that you like songs about guys. And so that's why I brought you this one. In this song, there's a guy. Imagine if you were working someplace, say, at a hospital, you're an orderly. They don't actually have such a position anymore, that's like, an old old position, orderly maybe knows what you're talking about but you will never actually write orderly on your tax forms. Certified nursing assistant or something. Don't you anyway me, I'll say what I like. I got a lot on my mind tonight.
  Audience: Keep it orderly!
  JD: Yes, I am keeping it orderly, very good. SO let's say you're an orderly. YOu can't sort of throw, you can't say, well, I'm gonna put on a different orderly sorta game today, you have never seen any orderly like this. Then they will fire you. Because there are specific parameters to your job, that you were hired to do. You weren't hired to mix it up. Maybe, y' know, bleed all over the bed instead of making it. OR attack your patients instead of passing them their medications. This is not - you can't do that. But in wrestling you can come up with a character who does what he likes.
  Audience, various/overlapping: Wolfman! Chavo! Peter!
  JD: This is about- no, this is not about Chavo, Chavo is a predictable guy. He's a good dude! This guy has fur on his face. ANd long sharp terrible claws. And a dark, dark heart with dark, dark secrets in it. (2015-04-02 - Mercy Lounge, Nashville)
• JD: We haven’t been playing this one too much for fear of passing out.... I wanna take one out so I can hear, but at the same time you’re supposed to protect your ears.... Nah, I gotta protect them, this one’s as loud as a motherfucker.
  Audience: Live hard, die young!
  JD: Yeah, it’s a little too late for that, man.
  Peter: Easy for you to say.
  Wurster: [drums in agreement]
  JD: I have news for you: sometimes, sometimes it turns out the slogan you didn't know you were living by was: 'live hard, live long.' The slogan begins to stretch: 'live hard, live long, feel pain, go on...wake up, keep going, keep going, keep going. [cheering] Grow old, keep going, outlive all friends, last man alive, unending desert, so many stars, limitless, endless stars, throne standing alone in the desert, and yourself quite old. This is about none of that business. I just sort of got distracted for a minute by the undeniable fact of my own, uh, you know, eternal insignificance. This is a song about a wrestler whose whole deal is like, people aren’t sure whether he's actually gonna legit eat your face or not. That kind of wrestler is the ones like: No, I think that guy’s really out of his mind. I don’t think that guy really cares.' And these other wrestlers, you can see them, like, takin' a, taking a bump but they’re not actually getting hit because they’re pretty and they want to protect themselves. But you see the occasional wrestler, no, he doesn't give a fuck. He's here to get hurt because he intends to die young. That's in his plan, right, is that at some point he will die and he won't be very old and that will be the end of all that and he won’t care anymore, so why not just go ahead and take a couple of real bumps right now? (2015-04-07 - Cat's Cradle, Carrboro)
• This is a song about those times in your life when you say, 'This job isn't working, I gotta pull out my werewolf gimmick.' It's called 'Werewolf Gimmick.' (2015-04-23)

Live Performances

• 2015-04-02 - Mercy Lounge, Nashville (recording)
• 2015-04-07 - Cat's Cradle, Carrboro (recording)

Footnotes