Strider: Say Your Prayers

A debut single, the first piece of music which essentially defines where your music career begins. For Strider, their debut single was ‘Say Your Prayers’ and by God is it a good debut single. This song is a solid 3 minutes of what you expect indie-rock to sound like. This songs instrumental, especially the guitar at the beginning, gives me the vibe of an acoustic version of Green Day's song ‘American Idiot’. Overall, the song is quite melodic and charismatic, something you’d bop your head to while wearing your headphones. The lyrics in the songs seem so intriguing, especially when you have them up and read along. There sure seems to be a lot linked with things you would possibly find in the Bible. “Inferno’s open doors are waiting for you” That sure sounds like someone is going to hell. “Can angels even fly? I saw you walking down the street and have you even tried” Angels are commonly depicted as these divine beings that can do no wrong, therefore whoever the lyrics are referring to is being questioned as to whether or not they are as good as they try and make themself appear to be because if they weren’t then they wouldn’t be like an angel, unable to do wrong.

“The preachers the teachers siding to and fro, they cover me with grubby hands. Oh will they let me go” if we stick to the same idea as religion similar to the previous verse then the “cover me with grubby hands” could refer to people trying to push on their belief onto the person whose perspective we’re seeing. “I’m scrounging round for cash with fourteen gashes in my fleece. Ten rats ten robbers” These seem to be the only part of the song which doesn’t really scream religious. They seem to give the idea of the lyricist being poor and homeless on the streets with tattered clothes.

Even without a full understanding as to what the song is about, it’s so fun to listen to and really gets the brain thinking as to what’s going on when Strider's vocalist Jack Waugh wrote the song.