Cold Desert

Lead vocalist Caleb Followill said on his band's website that this ballad is: "about a man at the end of his rope who picks himself back up."

One of this song's lyrics is, "Jesus doesn't love me, and no one ever carried my load." This has provoked much comment as three of the Kings of Leon are sons of a Pentecostal preacher, and the fourth, his nephew. Frontman and lyricist Caleb Followill admitted to the NME that "when it was played back to me and I heard the line... my eyes welled up with tears. It was the worst thing that I could imagine." So why did Caleb write the couplet? He told The Daily Telegraph September 17, 2008 that he was referring to the guilt of person with a Christian upbringing living the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. The son of a preacher explained: "There's still lingering guilt, and once I start to drink you don't want to be around me because there's a level of brutal honesty, if not just pure meanness. In a way, I lash out at everyone else because that's when I start to point fingers at myself. And that's when I write lyrics."