Munich

Album: Scars & Stories (2012)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Lying in a 17-mile tunnel miles deep beneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) with the aim of allowing physicists to test the predictions of different theories of particle physics, particularly for the existence of the "God Particle," which holds everything together.
  • The Fray singer Isaac Slade penned this up-tempo soft rock tune about some of the scientific questions being raised by the collider. He explained to interviewer Mike Ragogna: "I have a sweet spot for science - I think it's one of the most artistic professions out there. There's this large particle collider out in Switzerland that is kind of helping scientists peel back the curtain on what creates gravity and mass. Some very big questions are being raised, even some things that Einstein proposed, that have just been accepted for decades are starting to be challenged. They're looking for the God Particle, basically, the particle that holds it all together. That song is really just about the mystery of why we're all here and what's holding it all together, you know?" (Source The Huffington Post)
  • So what has this to do with the titular city of Munich, which is a few hundred miles away from the collider? Simply the song was birthed in the German city - it started with a little guitar riff that Isaac Slade wrote there - and the band turned it into a song at a sound check. Slade told Denver Westword: "We were doing a show in Munich, and I was reading a story about the neighboring particle collider they'd been working on in Switzerland and France. They're searching for the limit... they're standing on the edge of everything we know in science and trying to figure out what makes up 90 percent of the mass of a molecule and how it relates to the world."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Timothy B. Schmit

Timothy B. SchmitSongwriter Interviews

The longtime Eagle talks about soaring back to his solo career, and what he learned about songwriting in the group.

80s Video Director Jay Dubin

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in Songs

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in SongsSong Writing

Elvis, Little Richard and Cheryl Cole have all sung about Teddy Bears, but there is also a terrifying Teddy song from 1932 and a touching trucker Teddy tune from 1976.

The Truth Is Out There: A History of Alien Songs

The Truth Is Out There: A History of Alien SongsSong Writing

The trail runs from flying saucer songs in the '50s, through Bowie, blink-182 and Katy Perry.

Church Lyrics

Church LyricsMusic Quiz

Here is the church, here is the steeple - see if you can identify these lyrics that reference church.

Don Dokken

Don DokkenSongwriter Interviews

Dokken frontman Don Dokken explains what broke up the band at the height of their success in the late '80s, and talks about the botched surgery that paralyzed his right arm.