Seven Ways To Die

Album: Confessions (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • Confessions is an album based on the seven deadly sins. Frontman Josh Todd based the album's lyrics on his childhood and transformation into adulthood. He told Classic Rock Revisited: "Doing a record around the Sins is something Keith [Nelson] and I talked about for a couple of years. A lot of people have covered the subject in bands and in movies, but they are just so cool and they are timeless. We wanted to do our own take on it."
  • Regarding this song, Todd explained to Classic Rock Revisited: "I wanted kind of a title track to bring it all together, so we came up with that song. It has a great groove to it and the way the melody goes in and out of those pockets just fu--ing punches you."
  • The seven deadly sins are pride, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, avarice and sloth. They are supposedly mortal sins as opposed to pardonable ones and carry the threat of eternal damnation. There is no reference to them in the Bible, but the list was drawn up by the early Christian church and Pope Gregory I drew them into Catholic teachings. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that such mortal sins can only be forgiven by confession and penance.
  • A 2011 report based on a study of confessions carried out by Jesuit scholar Father Roberto Busa outlined how the sexes deal differently with the seven deadly sins. Two lists were compiled, one for men and one for women. Men's greatest weakness, it said, was lust, followed by gluttony, sloth and then anger, whilst women most usually confess to sins of pride and envy, followed by anger.

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