Birth of Violence

This song's third verse was inspired by a trippy story that Chelsea Wolfe's friend, Mike Sullivan from Russian Circles, told her about his cat Ethel. As we draw near the waiting room With the nod of two white owls One to sedate her, one shot to stop her heart Dear Ethel, all the lights in the city went out Wolfe explained to Kerrang: "He went to put his cat to sleep and there were two white owls outside the clinic, and right as Ethel was put to sleep the power in that part of Los Angeles went out. Those lines are my little tribute to it."

Chelsea Wolfe wrote and recorded her sixth album in seclusion at her home in Northern California. She told HMV why she named the record after this song. "I wrote the lyric 'Birth of Violence' in a state of channeling from something higher. I knew it was the album title, but I tried to fight it, as I thought it might be misunderstood in a variety of ways. But it felt strong to me in a personal way and a poetic way. It's like a field of bright flowers in violent bloom, a woman learning to stand up and use her voice, and it also felt like a book title you'd see on an old book in the used bookstore I worked in as a kid, like Grapes of Wrath, or Wuthering Heights."