What Blackmouth Halo is about
The closing track of Built To Refuse and its most personal song. It looks back on a hard upbringing ("Mother prayed with her eyes wide open, father drank just to feel alive") and turns it into defiance: no redemption song, no plea for forgiveness, just surviving where you stand.
Blackmouth Halo lyrics
I was raised on a crooked horizon
Where the saints all carried knives
Mother prayed with her eyes wide open
Father drank just to feel alive
Every promise came with a bruise mark
Every truth had a double face
Learned real quick how to taste the poison
Before it swallowed the place
You can’t save me
Don’t pretend
I already know how this ends
Put a blackmouth halo on my head
Call it holy, call it sin
I don’t need forgiveness now
I just need it to begin
Let the venom do the talking
Let the good men turn away
I was born with teeth bared open
I won’t die afraid
Every love I touched went feral
Every dream learned how to crawl
I don’t burn bridges I salt the water
So nothing comes back at all
You say pain makes you stronger
I say pain makes you honest
When the mirror starts asking questions
I don’t flinch, I answer it
You want truth
Here it is
I don’t want absolution
Put a blackmouth halo on my head
Call it grace, call it wrong
I don’t sing redemption songs
I just scream where I belong
Let the venom do the talking
Let the angels look away
I was built from broken systems
I won’t kneel, I won’t pray
I tried clean hands
They felt like lies
I tried silence
It screamed inside
If loving you means killing myself
Then I’ll let the darkness win
I’d rather be a living wound
Than a saint with dead skin
Put a blackmouth halo on my head
I don’t want a better name
If the cure looks like surrender
I’ll keep the ache
Let the venom do the talking
Let it crown me what I am
I’m not looking for tomorrow
I’m surviving where I stand
Where I stand