Song or Suicide

[childindark]

oh I love this song  though I guess they won't play it live due to:
on my concert:
someone in the audience: "play song or suicide"
ville: "uhm no" with a very no-ish no

[Maelstorm]

Well... maybe Song or Suicide is the shortest song HIM ever play (I mean a HIM song); the "pre"record  was Stigmata Diaboli in "666 Ways to Love.", but I think is the most organic;
HIM never made a song with 10 minutes lenght or 1 minutes;
Venus Dom was a... reorientation, reinventing a mature style; and I think it's comparable with GLS.
About "Song or Suicide", hope exists a large version because it is very atmospheric ant remainds me about the old times...

[LonelyRoad]

But I hardly doubt they will ever play smaller shows again.  They're gaining too much popularity.

yeahh ... I think the same ... and Ville is always looking for some ways to make happy to the thousands and thousands HIM's fans around the world so the best way is to do big shows ... But I would like a lot that they play a small show like the 2003 acoustic gig at mad tv

ohhhhhh babby i wish they would do that again

on FUSE or something...that would be tooooo good.

americans suck balls though

prolly wouldnt get it.

[-phalanx-]

this song is just horrible... nothing beautiful in it (in my mind!!)

[My Razorblade Kiss]

I think this song is one of the best by HIM it may be short but it is a great song and it definitely doesn't have to be 10 minutes but it is great! Lol

[MercuryAnne]

I never realised Song or Suicide was SOS!

This may be stupid (and wrong) but I thought this song was not about Ville contemplating suicide but it was about Ville's friend that recently committed suicide. And 'song' is Ville's option, 'suicide' was his friends. Am I right or far off?

[province]

I don't think his friend's suicide had much to do with this particular song. It seems to me that he just came across Judee Sill's words and felt inspired by them as he was in a similar sort of situation himself where it was down to either writing a song or commiting suicide to get rid of whatever shit he was going through.

It's true, though, that Ville did choose the former and his friend the latter. Even so, I doubt the song is about comparing his friend's decision to his. In many of his songs he uses the second-person pronoun (=you) but, in this case there are no references to other people insted of the "dreaming" part. IMO the song's rather personal and autobiographical with no late friends involved.

Then again, it's impossible for us to know what exactly he was thinking about when recording this song. His friend might've crossed his mind, who knows, but I doubt the song is about his friend per se.

[MercuryAnne]

Well Ville tends to avoid saying what his songs are about, saying that everyone reads them different. Song or Suicide is a great example of how many meanings there are behind a song.

I hope Ville's alright though.

[province]

True. Although I feel SOS is probably the most self-explanatory song on VD when it comes to lyrics.

But I guess people can interpret even the simplest of lines quite differently.

[0321]

It seems to me that he just came across Judee Sill's words and felt inspired by them as he was in a similar sort of situation himself where it was down to either writing a song or commiting suicide to get rid of whatever shit he was going through.

I head him do an interview once where he mentioned her and said that's where he got the idea for this song.  I don't necessarily think it's about his friends suicide either.. perhaps just a patch he was going through in his life, but after all so does everyone else.

[MercuryAnne]

You wouldn't happen to know where the interview is, would you?

[0321]

I ran into it like three or four months ago.. I don't still have it.

[MercuryAnne]

It seems to me that he just came across Judee Sill's words and felt inspired by them as he was in a similar sort of situation himself where it was down to either writing a song or commiting suicide to get rid of whatever shit he was going through.

I head him do an interview once where he mentioned her and said that's where he got the idea for this song.  I don't necessarily think it's about his friends suicide either.. perhaps just a patch he was going through in his life, but after all so does everyone else.

These are from interview. So it was influenced by Judy Sill...

"The whole 'Song Or Suicide' title came from a folk singer from the 70s called Judee Sill, who did 'Jesus Was a Cross Maker' and some other minor hits. She said in an interview that at one point she was having such a bad relationship with somebody that she had to either write a song about it or kill herself. It was either song or suicide for her. That's what music is to me as well."

"'Song or Suicide', the shortest track in the band's history. The tune was inspired by a folk song from the '70s: 'It's a quote from a folksy singer who died from a heroin overdose, Judee Sill,' explains Valo. 'She had a relationship that was really bad, and in an interview she just said it was either a song or a suicide, so she wrote a song about it.'"


Seems that I just needed to do a bit of research (but I didn't know where to start)

[0321]

Yeah, that's the one.