This is the opening track of Emperor of Sand, an album that tells an allegorical tale of a man handed a death sentence by a desert sultan. The storyline acts as a metaphor for cancer. "It's about going through cancer, going through chemotherapy and all the things associated with that," drummer Brann Dailor explained to Rolling Stone. "I didn't want to be literal about it. But it's all in there. You can read between the lines."
Guitarist Bill Kelliher explained to ABC Radio that as Mastodon was writing Emperor of Sand, each band member was dealing with someone close to them suffering from illness. "Right when I started working on writing all my riffs and getting together with Brann [Dailor], we would get together and we would talk about our moms first," Kelliher said. "He would come over to my house, we'd have coffee, and his mom was in the hospital, my mom had cancer and was very very ill."
Bassist / vocalist Troy Sanders' wife was also diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. "We're reflecting on mortality," said Sanders. "To that end, the album ties into our entire discography. It's 17 years in the making, but it's also a direct reaction to the last two years. We tend to draw inspiration from very real things in our lives."
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