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Out in the Wilds by DavidN

Out in the Wilds

DavidN

The second full song from The Poison Skies!

davidn davidn
The timeline for this album was… long. I had been playing around with ideas for it while I was writing Signal from the Sky in 2010-2012, and most of the first half of the album was written by the time Hatoful happened to us and led me to concentrate on my video-making for a while - Hatoful also spawned a mini storyline concept album which was in many ways a practice run for this one.

So, several of the songs were mostly written in Modplug first, were put to bed for a while and were then transplanted over to Reaper. This is one of them, and I’m so glad that the transition happened because I love how it came out - once again, the Shreddage guitar library gives so much more realistic a tone, and I love the sound of the introduction to the mid-section. It’s one of the longer tracks at just over seven minutes, combining a character’s introduction with an advancement of the story in much the same way that the source novel does.

Even though it was a challenge to communicate ideas for the rest of the song across the Internet and mostly not working together in person, I love how this one came out in the end - the moment I realized Kjorteo and I were so in tune with each other was when I passed her the idea for a chorus I had and even without being given any lyrics at all, she could recognize the repeated shout of “Out in the Wilds” throughout the chorus. That chorus and the mid-section are mine - Kjorteo wrote the entire first half of the song.

When singing Girard’s lines I tried to give a bit of a snarl to my voice, spitting the words more - I rely a lot on studio magic to put any sort of power behind my voice but I think the difference is just about audible, and I surprised myself on the “the savior has gone…” line. Contrasting me, Kjorteo also provides Girard’s growling voice throughout the album to emphasize lines where he’s at the height of madness (because I can’t do that).

kjorteo kjorteo
Long before this album actually existed, I had come up with a personal list of which metal singers' voices I felt would be most appropriate for each of the main characters in the novel. At the time, this was purely a for-fun thought exercise, because power metal is a genre wherein assembling singers to act out a massive epic is something that actually happens with some regularity (Avantasia, Ayreon, Avalon, and now Albion. See if you can spot a pattern.)

In my head, I had always cast Blind Guardian's Hansi Kursch as Girard--again, well before David took my silly little headcanons literally and based each song's "sound" off of them--because Kursch has an amazingly aggressive voice and a known tendency to write sympathetic pity-me songs from the perspective of madness-consumed villains. In what would eventually become a song about Girard raging against the cruelty of his own fate, the fit was perfect.

When this did become a real project, David took that connection and ran with it, using a Blind Guardian-inspired sound to make a perfectly fitting chorus. I loved it and wanted to help, so I worked on the verse and pre-chorus to match it. The contrasting long held first line note and more aggressive followup line in "Alone/I find myself in this land" took significant inspiration from the song "Beneath These Waves" by Demons & Wizards (another Kursch project.) The line "A walk through the shadows" in that song contains the exact holding effect I was trying for with my "Alone", and their "The ocean's beauty" line was even the exact note/key my verse started with in my original Modplug rendition, before David changed the pitch on everything to accommodate his Reaper instruments and singing voice.

Lyrics
[Girard:]
Alone
I find myself in this land
How did I get here, why am I in this place?
Unknown
No clues, no signs, no guidance
Nothing but horror as I realize my fate

And on this twisted morning
Trapped outside, alone, afflicted
Frightened and confused, rejected
I was cast out without any warning
How could I of all end up here
What went on, what is the reason
I'm left to die

Outside
There's no way back to living
Get out of sight, I've got to get far away
To run away
Survive
I'm on my own, I'm stranded
No one to save me from the horror of fate

And on this twisted morning
Trapped outside, alone, afflicted
Frightened and confused, rejected
I was cast out without any warning
How could I of all end up here
What went on, what is the reason
I'm left to die

I wander
I struggle and starve
With no explanation why
There's no way home, no way to try
I suffer
I cry out in pain
Am I really meant to die

Out in the wilds
My life was taken away
Out in the wilds
Lost in fear and dismay

In the land of sickness, starvation, pain, and death
Here I am, betrayed and forsaken, left to die
To wither beneath the poison sky
What I need is a savior
Out in the wilds

[Edward:]
I found him by the river, naked and alone
I gave him food and shelter, everything he had to know
Day by day his strength returned
Till he'd survive on what he'd learned
And time had come for me to take my leave

[Girard:]
No, this miracle can't walk out of my life
Can't throw me back to face the silence of the poisoned wilds
You found me in my distress
The height of pain and hopelessness
If you won't stay with me, I'll walk with you

[Both:] And he became
[Girard:] My keeper
[Edward:] The first of the tribe
[Girard:] My savior and friend
I was lost without you here

Out in the wilds
My life was taken away
Out in the wilds
Lost in fear and dismay

In the land of sickness, starvation, pain, and death
Here I am, betrayed and cast out, but saved at last
You helped me to overcome my past
I live on with my savior
Out in the wilds

Erased and they don't care
But you would still be here
If only you'd stayed
Been mine, only mine
It's so unfair to leave me
The tribe I formed deceived me
But now I'll fight in your name

[Voice of madness:]
There's no way to hide from their stare
I still feel their eyes everywhere
And the hatred that clouds all their minds
It hides the truth of it all

The savior has gone from this world
He left us behind, we are cursed
To live outcast, forsaken and desolate

[Girard:]
Out in the wilds
My life was taken away
Out in the wilds
Lost in fear and dismay

In the land of sickness, starvation, pain, and death
Here I am, betrayed and I'm once again alone
Lost the only hope I've ever known
They murdered my savior
Out in the wilds

My keeper
My savior and friend
He is lost, and left me here
Out in the wilds

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