I wrote "When You Go To Hell" in the free camping area near Leadville, Colorado in September 2015.  It was a popular live song with the swing-dancing crowd.  People from the past would show up and dominate the dance floor with their ghostly, retro moves.  The bass player would often laugh during the performance, do they have any idea what they're dancing to?  And I'd say, yeah, it's a hardcore philosophical social and spiritual statement, slipped under the door of a lively organic dance song.  But it wasn't written to make people think.  "When You Go To Hell" is a lively, uplifting tune that gives you the option to think, if you so choose.  But it isn't dark.  It isn't heavy.  It isn't "Robobitch."  I never bothered trying to teach the band "Robobitch."  You could tell the bass player was afraid of it.  It didn't matter.  It wasn't important.  There are other, easier songs that are more suitable in a live setting anyway.  It's funny though.  I'm always surprised by how easily people are manipulated into hating and being afraid of things.  "Robobitch" really pissed off this chick I used to know in England.  She sent me an angry message that read, "it sounds like you want a compliant robot."

Not really, but in an age of contentious contrarians who are legally capable of eviscerating your entire livelihood on a whim, and who seem to genuinely believe they are oppressed if they don't cheat on you, a compliant robot definitely sounds like an improvement.

I still like the song, and the recording is an enjoyable anomaly in my discography, but I'm not sure I'd play "Robobitch" anymore anyway.  Even if I had the chance.  It makes a good soundtrack for any guys who have recently been cheated on, and whose hearts are inside-out, crushed like aluminum cans at the bottom of the sea.  It has its place.  But I wouldn't go out of my way.

"When You Go To Hell" isn't much lighter, but it is easier for willfully-deaf people to digest.  It paints a few pictures from my personal life, before stumbling on a meeting of "religious lunatics" in the woods.  The "religious lunatics" aren't religious people in the traditional sense; they're people who are religious about their politics.  Especially people who still consider themselves to be "liberals," a belief system that can't be explained without an unhealthy sense of delusion and denial, not to mention mountains of murderous, misplaced faith.  At least, not in 2024.  Not even in 2015, when I wrote the song.  "Liberalism," as most people understand it, has been obsolete since Obama, at least.  I fell away from it in the early months of Obama's first term, and am mildly embarrassed it took me that long to figure it out.  But Bush was a compelling argument for what used to be considered "liberalism" in those days.  I used to wonder if I'd miss the Bush years, if I'd look back on them and think of them as "quaint."  The righteous indignation over the "Patriot Act," the resistance to unconstitutional declarations of war, an actual interest in 9/11 truth....  All radical concepts by the puritanical anti-standards of the modern "liberal," concepts which were actually engaged in, passionately, by pot smokers and theater people and minorities and homosexuals and single vegan mothers of tie-dyed children who weren't allowed to play with mind-rotting devices like Nintendo Game Boys... all kinds of radical, fundamental American concepts, taken for granted by everybody.

And now the LINOs (liberals in name only) march in the street and attack people who wear red hats, or who don't want to be guinea pigs for Big Pharma.

Disgraceful.

"American Infidel" is an amusing Polaroid from the time, as is the song "George Bush What's Your Problem?," used here as the bumper music for a Korean TV show called Culture Zone.  They were in New York in the summer of 2006, interviewing people about dissent in America after 9/11.

Dissent in America after 9/11.

How quaint is that?

Anyway, the "religious lunatics" in the 3rd verse of "When You Go To Hell" aren't religious people in the traditional sense.  They're religious people in the modern sense.  The 2nd half of the song lists all kinds of doomed, comical archetypes.  Notable by today's Puritanical anti-standards is the total absence of "HATE SPEECH" in a song that makes a list of condemned archetypes; no scary words were harmed in the writing or recording of "When You Go To Hell."  It's as though going to hell isn't reserved for people I don't like; it's something anyone can do.  And I used to like Russell Brand and Eminem.  I wouldn't actually name somebody I didn't like.  And while I don't hate Russell Brand or Eminem, they have both managed to lose me in the interim.  "Juggernut" was a friend of mine.

So if you're interested, and want to support independent musicians, "When You Go To Hell" is from the Wild Hearts Forever album.  It's also available on the Hellfire in a Nutshell collection.

Thanks for listening.

When You Go To Hell

I was lying on my back
in the dark
when in a flash,
I saw a spark

A picture of Dorian Gray
like a reflection of
Judgment Day

I heard the chorus of horrors within
I saw you standing on the edge
of a bottomless pit
with a grin

A tragic and terrible clown
who's dug his own grave
with a crown

So I had church
way up past the timberline
I smoked the equivalent
of a bottle of good wine

Thoroughly unleaded,
I headed south
mountains on the roof
of my mouth

I followed my ravens,
my magnets,
my fear
across the dusty floor
of a dusty mirror

My windshield was unrighteous
and unclean
why does my love
come off so mean?

I came across a meeting in the sticks
a gathering of religious lunatics
performing rituals
designed to destroy
individuality, reason, and joy

They flashed a collective,
disingenuous grin
and told me to repent
from my dissent
cuz it's a sin

They hung their privileges
over my rights
their teeth gleamed
like pitchforks in the night

And they said, "Hey man, remember us well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell"

Mr. President, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you minichrists, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you pope fiends, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you proxy Satanists, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you Willy Wonka Wiccans, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you cotton-candy Communists, remember me well
When you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you Illuminati hotties, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

Russell Brand, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

Eminem, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you control freaks, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you self-justificationers, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

All you green police, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

Juggernut, remember me well
when you go to hell
when you go to hell

©2016 Nathan Payne