Epic Failure

Download “Epic Failure”
Download the Clean Guitar Mix

Story

March 13, 2008- The songs I’ve uploaded for The Six Day Exile have thus far been relatively short, with the exception of “Low-Frequency Autoeroticism” (Which has somehow failed to yield the number of X-rated searches leading to this site I expected). That trend ends now.

I essentially wanted an excuse to scream “JOHN ROMERO’S DAIKATANA!!!” in a song. In true progressive rock fashion, this excuse to do just that runs nearly seven minutes in length–easily the longest song on the site to date, eclipsing even “Color Our Time Bomb Blackened” by about 40 seconds. It also encompasses pretty much every influence I’ve ever had in music. See if you can pick some of them out!

• I’ll help you out with the first one by stating that I was going for something like the start of Dream Theater’s “The Dance of Eternity” with the beginning. My distorted guitar tone is, suffice to say, not quite there at this juncture.
• Yes, you can call Godwin on me at 3:28 in the song. Yes, Hitler’s World War II failure was really that epic–general consensus among historians is that if he had stuck to attacking the British Royal Air Force instead of suddenly switching tactics and bombing the City of London proper, he was anywhere between days and weeks away from actually winning World War II. Think about that for a second, or several.
• Less serious and more amusing to me is the fact that in the way the song ended up, I manage to compare Daikatana to two of the greatest tactical errors in the history of warfare. Perhaps the most amusing thing about it is that Daikatana isn’t even completely terrible, though someone’s description of it as “John Romero’s Frog-and-Bug Murder Simulator” is pretty accurate in its early levels. There was just no way the game was going to live up to its hype even if it hadn’t been plagued by three years of development problems (A similar fate befell Metal Gear Solid 2, which was hyped essentially nonstop from the time the original was released. Despite the 9.6 score, anything less than perfection in all respects was unacceptable, and people seem to be in agreement that the story turns into a completely incomprehensible mess of “We were JUST KIDDING about just kidding about the whole thing…whoops, just kidding! Hahaha, good joke, no?” at the end.).
• Also amusing is the fact that the one verse of the song about war is separated from the two screams regarding war-related errors in the choruses.
• With the exception of one part, the chorus of the song (Such that it is) features me harmonizing with myself, which I previously attempted on “Journey to Acceptance“. It goes better here, though the part that lacks harmony is because I didn’t figure out what harmony would go well with that main melody quite yet.
• The song is really more like three mini-songs, each describing a failure on someone’s part. Don’t read too much into any of the parts; any relation to reality is purely coincidental.
• “Duhflushtech” comes from a Dilbert strip wherein Dogbert suggests that Pointy-Haired Boss change the name of the company to (His approximate words) “Something that conveys your total ignorance, but with a hint of looking to the future”. Pointy-Haired Boss, of course, likes the sound of the name.
• I need to figure out a way to scream such that I’m somewhat close to the microphone, but without clipping the sound like crazy. I essentially want the screams to kick you in the stomach with the contrast to the rest of the vocals in the final version.
• The MIDI drums on this are because most of the song was recorded pre-drum machine, including the drums. Only the guitar comes from this year, actually.
• For more on why there’s a clean guitar mix and a distorted guitar mix of the song, click here.

Lyrics

You’re the Captain of a sinking ship
Run into a rock formation
You’re going down, and it’s all your fault
You couldn’t steer it right, and I doubt you even tried.
You let your workers do your job
Figured everything would be okay
They neglected their positions
In the middle of the ocean, you will live your final day

In a world of epic failure
Take your place among the greats (Napoleon invading Russia)
Your name will live in history
But you’d be better off forgotten

You lead a failing company
Your yearly budget swept away
You never turn a profit
Yet somehow in your job you stay
On the verge of bankruptcy
Because of your mismanagement
The workers of Duhflushtech
Will never see retirement

In a world of epic failure
Take your place among the greats (Hitler terror-bombing London)
Your name will live in history
But you’d be better off forgotten

You’re the general in a failed war
Beneath your command, the casualties mount
You cling to your ineffective strategy
You let down your god and country
You blundered your way through countless conflicts
This crushing defeat, your eternal legacy

In a world of epic failure
Take your place among the greats (John Romero’s Daikatana)
Your name will live in history
But you’d be better off forgotten