Songfacts®:

• Frontman Tim Lambesis has said in interview that the lyrics on The Powerless Rise are meant to offer a solution to the problems of the modern world. He explained to The Las Vegas Weekly: "There's a lot of things that we focus on in society that would actually be better if we completely reverse [them]. For instance, there's such an emphasis on material gain, and there's a couple songs on the album that talk a lot about turning that idea upside down and finding the strength in simplicity, and a completely backwards style of living than what we're taught—especially in Western culture."
• As I Lay Dying took their name from a 1930 William Faulkner novel of the same name. The writer took it from book 11 of The Odyssey, where it is used in a conversation between Odysseus and Agamemnon. Lambesis admitted to The Las Vegas Weekly that there isn't any particular significance behind their choice of name. He said: "At the time, nobody in the band had ever read the book. So we just liked the way the name sounded. We have since, through our lyrics, kind of given the name it's own meaning in this context. Looking back, it's funny because it's obviously a very well written and popular book, but at the time we had never even heard of it. To be honest, I've actually only skimmed through it [since then]. The writing style of Faulkner is definitely interesting, but the storyline itself to me isn't enough to get me through the whole book."