We Are Not Your Kind

Five years after their last release, Slipknot have come and smacked us in the face with a brand new song. It’s teasing their 2019 album release, and frankly if the album is as half as good as this one song, it will still be amazing.

This song marks an interesting turn for the Iowan musicians, while they still have their anti-establishment streak, it is an overall positive anthem. I can’t think of another Slipknot song that has this type of positivity, this type of challenge to the maggots, to live an all out life.

I don’t know why, but I have always been counter-culture (and not in that whole hipster-gender-doesn’t-exist-nonsense way). I don’t understand that people seem happy to go about their lives and get told what to buy and when, get told that these people are famous now and we should care about them, and just the whole acceptance of the work-to-TV lifestyle. I get some of it – after a hard day of being yelled at for money, you just want to sit and have mindless dribble fed to you. You just need that mental escape. I get that. What I don’t understand is when that is your existence.

As people on the other side of the world, why should we care when Famous Actor A says they disagree with another country’s president? Why should we care about Singer B’s holiday photos? I don’t understand the celebrity worship that this culture embraces and encourages. What happened to celebrating proper human achievement? What happened to celebrating local people? Those teachers that put up with children all day? The doctors who routinely save people’s lives through hours long surgery?

This is why I love Slipknot, and the metal genre. Sure, not every single song is all in-depth lyrics that challenge your very theology or personal beliefs, but the majority is about something more than “look at my car, look at my money”, “who runs the world” or the typical “love, love, love”. Metal, by its very nature, should cause you to question things – whether thats your life, your choices, the world – just something, anything. Another reason why I don’t enjoy the whole “We’re metal so we have to sing about the devil” nonsence. Please. Not only has that been done to death, but now we have popstars flashing up these symbols at us too.

Read the lyrics and see if anything challenges you here. Even if you’re not a metal or Slipknot fan for whatever reason, I am sure there is something here that might stick out.

In this world, I am not your kind. And it is something I am proud to be.

What a world, the horizon
It’s coming like a hell-bent killing machine
Can’t afford to be the goddamn wreckage
Burn it all again at a million degrees
Calling all the adamant upper-level
Undefeated counterfeit cunts with a reason to fear
Throw away all the meaningless shit that’s clinging
The enemy is here, I said stop

Give it to 3
I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean
One by one against, give me the name
All you shiny pretty never-wills ruined the game
You hold all the keys so the chains shouldn’t hold you
I know you heard me, I fucking told you

Old does not mean dead
New does not mean best
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine
Kill does not mean die
We are not your kind
No excuses
I challenge you to all out fucking life

Drop that shit and put it on a pedestal
Children are afraid of the gods
Raise your hands and show me what’s impossible
That makes us even, never tell me the odds
What a bore, getting stuck in a metaphor
I don’t want to go to sleep
I need a breakdown quick in negotiations
Get it all together and remember to seethe, stop

Give it to 3
I’m going to show you how to do it if you know what I mean
Drive by violence, more of the same
I can see where you’re going and I’m really ashamed
Do you think when you act or just act like you’re thinking?
I got to know now, you better tell me

Old does not mean dead
New does not mean best
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine
Kill does not mean die
We are not your kind
I challenge you to all out life

We are gathered here today to get it right
Repeat after me:
“I will not celebrate mediocrity
I will not worship empty shells
I will not listen to worthless noises
I will not subject myself to selected predictable choices
My time, my attention
My quality should not be bought and sold
For convenience’s sake, ever!”

We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind
We are not your kind

Old does not mean dead (Hey!)
New does not mean best (Hey!)
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)
Kill does not mean die (Die!)
Pay attention
It’s gonna be a while ’til I really feel alright

Old does not mean dead (Hey!)
New does not mean best (Hey!)
No hard feelings
I’m tired of being right
About everything I’ve said
Yours does not mean mine (Mine!)
Kill does not mean die (Die!)
We are not your kind
No excuses
I challenge you to all out fucking life

All-out life
Yeah
I challenge you to all-out fucking life
Yeah
Live!
Live!
Live!
Life!

Slipknot – All Out Life