Death is a prevalent theme in the band Tiger Army’s lyrical content. I’m a huge fan, and I have been for fifteen years. Since I’ve been paying attention to the lyrics of Nick 13 for all these years, I’ve noticed some themes get built upon with proceeding releases. What I noticed about their most recent release, Retrofuture, is Nick’s evolved view of death.
Early Years
Like I said, death has always been a prevailing theme in Nick 13’s lyrics. On the first E.P. release, in a song titled Temptation, he laments:
Sometimes I try to set my sights up higher
But if there’s a heaven I’m bound for the fire
…and in a song on the same release, FTW:
Everyday I want to fucking die
A lamentable and flippant view toward death pervaded Nick’s lyrical content when he was young, but it didn’t take long for his lyrics to form a more poetical and philosophical stance toward the great equalizer. Where annihilation and destruction seemed to be the truth behind death on that early record, Tiger Army’s self-titled debut album took on a more developed view of the afterlife oriented toward eternality. In the song Never Die:
When the slumber of forever’s called me home
I will not be gone, oh no you’ll never be alone…Listen to the winds at night
You may hear me call your name
I once felt so alone but now I’m home
And I know that there is something… beyond…For I long to drink of immortality
Of this the nighttime stars, they speak to me
For we all shall someday part the veil
And cross thru to the other side
In one way or another I shall live on and never die
In death as in life… I will arise
Power of Moonlite
The second album, II: Power of Moonlite, is a record overcome by musical influences of horror punk, even featuring London May (of Samhain fame) on the drums. A lot of the songs deal with death, like Incorporeal, which is from the perspective of a ghost (like you I once was and like me you shall be). But out of all the songs on this record, we find a wistful look at aging from the track In the Orchard:
The seasons of my life, I watch them pass
The blossoms of spring fall, leaving only winter’s naked branch
It seems death slowly becomes something not desperately wished for, but something rued along with all of humanity.
Ghost Tigers Rise
Calling, a song on the third album, III: Ghost Tigers Rise, undergirds the concept of life being good, and death being lamented:
I hear them calling to me from another world
“Look at the place you live” they say
“Oh won’t you join us in a world that’s without pain?
Leave behind your misery”
I cannot listen withought longing
To let go of my burdens sounds so sweet
Reasons to hold on there are many
This I must remember when the sirens call to meI know that my time here has not yet come
There’s still so much that’s left to do and say
I know that my work here is not done
But I’ll go to them someday
There’s something in those lyrics that’s exalting life over death. There’s a natural goodness in life that death seems to take from us.
Music from Regions Beyond
Even the title of this album (which comes from the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland) hints at a supernatural non-physical existence. A track titled Afterworld presents the afterlife not only as something eternal, but a place where lovers are reunited eternally to continue their interrupted passion.
Our love will live in the afterworld
Some things will never end, they’re just too strong
It soars into the sky, beyond this world
I’ll wait for you until the afterworld
We’ll be together soon, it won’t be long
Well life goes by so fast in this world
In this world
Beyond the heavens above, beyond anything
Beyond the moment our hearts did see eternity
Beyond our bodies in this life, beyond the end
Is the place where our love will never die
Solo Album
Finally, after four years of no Tiger Army releases, Nick 13 released his solo album in the style of classic country/americana music. The theme of death in his writing nearly reaches its apex in a song titled Carry My Body Down. It captures the uncertainty of death’s timing, yet the certainty of its arrival. Death is emerging as a less glamorous fate awaiting all men. I feel compelled to quote the song at length:
How long can this journey go on?
Will I find the place I’m meant to go?
Will dreams fall down around us
Just like a winter snow?
Another year has come and gone
Will my luck hold for one year more?
I think of how far that I’ve come
And what’s been left behind
When will they carry my body down?
When will they carry my body down?
Will they take it from the river
After I’ve jumped right in and drowned?
Will they find it on the battle field
On the spot I stood my ground?
I wander long, I wander far
Someday I’ll wander no more
I’ll search to find what I have lost
And that which I’ve never known.
And when I find that I’m gone
Across the river I’ll go
I’ll take only my memories
Things that might have been.
When will they carry my body down?
When will they carry my body down?
Will they cut it from my hangman’s noose
After the sentence has been down?
Will anyone be there to mourn
A villain’s pass into the ground?
Retrofuture
Finally we arrive to 2019, a year for which Tiger Army fans in 2012 would have been salivating. The most prolific period in the band’s history, boasting three releases in four years—not to mention a perennial litany of merchandise. Death is as prevalent a theme as ever in the newest record.
In the song Last Ride, amid exceptionally melodious group chants of “whoa” we hear:
It won’t be long until we’re below
Time is shorter than you think so let’s go
It won’t be long until we’re below
You know that we’ve got to make the most
This could be our last ride
Death Card presents a slightly different view of death than other songs on the record:
Dealt the death card don’t you know
To gain a new life you must let go
Dealt the death card don’t you know
Are you ready for ascendance?
All that which weighs upon us
Let it sink with the sun
Returned from whence it came
It’s not the end, just the start of another game
Nick’s most apt treatment of death to date, what I think is the most real and sincere from the heart, is found in the song Beyond the Veil. Again, I must quote this song at great length:
A sudden shock, a sudden leap
Floating then flying through the night
Would I really want to leave forever?
Mysteries grow few and far between
And in the end there’s only one
The smallest clue would be a revelation
When I was young I longed to know
What lies beyond the veil
If my mind could only see it
But as I come closer it whispers
I don’t want to tell
The things that it says in my dreams
Excitement turns to fear and dread
Something I prayed for once denied
So many times I thought this was what I wanted
Now it’s here, I don’t know what to think
This isn’t how I thought I’d feel
The decades now seem a fleeting moment
This comes from an older man (although not old by any stretch of the imagination) than the one who wrote the earliest Tiger Army songs . This man has seen friends and family die, including the friend who inspired the song Where the Moss Slowly Grows. The death of Jerry Finn was also a tragedy that affected Nick as well as the entire punk world simultaneously. I draw attention to these things not out of a voyeuristic, tabloid-esque pry into the inner thoughts and creative work that belong to Nick 13 only and nobody else. I say this as a seasoned appreciator of his writing and someone who wants to experience it on its own terms. Understanding the artist’s inspiration is key.
The Impending Reality
It’s ultimately up to nobody to speculate what Nick 13 believes about death, and it’s up to nobody but himself to say it publicly. The words that we Tiger Army fans cherish to no end come from someone who has felt the sting of death, and must reckon daily with the impending reality of it, closing in on an unknown moment.
Regardless of what any of us believe about death, only the oddest of cults hold death as an all-around positive thing. We are all closing in on that final moment. Death’s influence on the world will constantly assault us until our final moment comes. While we sit at our loved one’s funerals or read tragic news, we know death is not positive and not the way things are supposed to be.