A Literary Student Analyzes Slipknot Pt. 1

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog space! I haven’t seen you all in a few months, so I figured we should start this year with something to get us in the Locklyn’s Blogs mood, you know what I mean? So, without further ado, I will analyze and connect the dots between some of my favorite slipknot songs in the story’s chronological order! You’ll soon see why this story is one of my favorites.

Killpop: 5th track from “The Gray Chapter”

In an interview, Corey Taylor, the singer from slipknot, revealed that Killpop was about the music industry. While that explanation seems fitting, I decided to dig a little deeper and figure out what else this song could be connected to. So, in the song, the lyrics read:

“Maybe I should let her go

But only when she loves me

How can I just let her go?

Not until she loves me.”

This song is from the perspective of a man who eventually comes into contact with a woman whom he quickly becomes obsessed with, but the more he seems to get to know her, the more he realizes that she is also self-destructive. Though after being with him for a little while she begins trying to heal and get better so she can leave him, but he has other ideas. He becomes so obsessed with her that he cannot stand the idea of her leaving him. So he kills her using lyrics a bit too… aggressive for this blog. 

Vermillion: Track 8 from “The Subliminal Verses”

“She is everything and more

The solemn hypnotic

My Dahlia bathed in possession

She is home to me

I get nervous, perverse, when I see her, it’s worse.”

This says a lot about the man’s mentality after the murder. He is still obsessed with her, and from those lines, it feels a lot like the man is seeing visions of the woman. The Dahlia line could also reference the black dahlia case, which was a real-life case about a woman who was also murdered. The second half of that line about possession shows that by killing her, she will always be his. This song is also sang in a very aggressive manner, which gives off major frustration and rage vibes. He is so stressed about the visions and generally goes even more crazy over the fact that he killed her.

“She isn’t real

I can’t make her real

She isn’t real

I can’t make her real”

These lines reoccur a few times throughout the song. This is the man angrily beating himself up over the murder and then the visions that stem from that. He knows the visions he sees aren’t her, and he is frustrated that he can’t bring her back. He can’t touch or kiss her again because she’s no longer real. He is beginning to feel the guilt.

 

Thank you all for reading this month! I hope you enjoyed it and will come back to read the next part in the following weeks!