Affirm This

This was the first song I deliberately said I was going to make only positive lyrics for. This was a time where I had to detach from all the roles that I had adopted in my life that were destroying my soul or harming other people. I was trying to please people by being their producer, or pleasing customers by being their punching bag, and looking for a better 9-5 job than I last had. I had been listening to subliminal positive affirmations while I slept, but I felt like they were way to weak for what I needed.

Some of the lyrics seem hyperbolic like “I am perfect, I am whole” or “I choose my own destiny, I choose what gives me peace” but I figured if I think to myself I’m incomplete, I’m fucked up, I’m out of control, I’m irritable, that’s equally hyperbolic in the negative. I had a running joke with my friend that if there is a choice between delusional positivity or delusional negativity I’d take positivity.

I listen to “Affirm This” when I’m in a confident state of mind, I’ve separated from the scams of popular wisdom, and I feel I’m on a golden vibration. This is because I’ve heard my whole life how metal is noise, its negative, its shameful to listen to and I think all these micro-traumas build up over time; so I had to make a real statement of what I like. I had a chip on my shoulder and tried to show how beauty can happen in metal music with the interludes and clean vocals.

I composed this track based off of Lamb of God’s Wrath album to which I was listening to almost everyday and I think is still their best album and tried to give a little bit of Marylin Manson in the “I’m a good winner, I’m a go getter” section of the song. I realized that I can be positive as a metalhead and make a bold statement without having to softener up with reggae or making it sound more “rock and roll”. Metal is the new rock and roll.

I didn’t write any of the lyrics down until afterwards I just started the track and let it go. After I had a couple of ideas down I wrote the lyrics I had and did them better.

The self reflective tool I used hear was overly positive and hyperbolic statements because the use of positive affirmations can rewire my brain. At first the saying are going to sound outrageous and that’s a good sign because that means for whatever reason I believed the opposite. So I would write down 10 positive things that you are starting with “I AM” and see what you write; I wouldn’t think about it too much-the bigger the better.