Everyone gets songs stuck in their heads that just won’t go away. They sneak into your subconscious. They are epic earworms that you find yourself humming uncontrollably, singing in the shower, or tapping the beat to with your foot or ballpoint pen when you should be working. Sometimes they even keep you awake at night. Whether they are current hits, one-hit wonders, movie soundtrack gems, holiday favorites, or songs from your youth, their catchy vocals, riffs, hooks, and choruses seem to linger for days.
Here, those songs find a home, no matter the genre. Here, those epic earworms are revisited, explained, and celebrated. Here, you may find the song that haunts you tomorrow. Here is today’s unescapable song of the day…and the story behind it.
Today’s Epic Earworm: Avenged Sevenfold — “Bat Country”
Music Video for “Bat Country” by Avenged Sevenfold, Courtesy of Warner Records
Huntington Beach, California-based metal band Avenged Sevenfold already had a gold record and a platinum album to their credit when their third studio album, City of Evil, came out in 2005. The album’s second single, “Bat Country,” became the band’s first to chart in the United States, topping the Active Rock chart and peaking at Number Two on the Mainstream Rock chart. The song went platinum, skyrocketing the band’s popularity.
“Too Weird To Live, And Too Rare To Die”
Bibliophiles may recognize that “Bat Country” had a secret weapon. The song contained several references to Hunter S. Thompson‘s 1971 semi-autobiographical masterpiece “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” The song’s title is derived from a line in the book, and the phrase “too weird to live, and (much) too rare to die” in the full-length version of the song is a slightly altered version of a line in the film adaptation of the book. Both are spoken by Thompson’s narrator/alter ego, Raoul Duke.
The song starts with the phrase “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” That quote is in the preface of Thompson’s book and is a quote from the revered English writer Samuel Johnson. The book deals a lot with the late gonzo journalist in varying altered states, and that theme is also prevalent throughout the song. While Avenged Sevenfold tragically lost their drummer in 2009, the band is still finding success 26 years after its inception. Too rare to die, indeed…
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