The United Dictators Of Mars - SONG

21 Run

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Music: Mody, Words: Mody

I fight black & white wars with bloodless decors against Harvard and Oxford and Russian elite. And now I'm left my last man via the slip of my hand, or should I say my mind. I wonder. I've only 21 spaces to run from defeat across checkerboard squares, mathematical retreat.

They treated my pawns like pawns. My castles crumbled at dawn. After hours of tension it's down to the chase, stalemate. Run king run, 21 run. Never look back and run king run, 21 run.

Hells bells are ringing the start of my play, their sound gets sweeter the longer I stay. 15 & 14 & 13 I count, now a halo of angels has circled about. I see dusk, dawn, planning and plots, now I'm tired of running I'm tired of thoughts. To the borders I run, disarray has begun. My equations are useless and useless is logic now shun.

I'm dodging the angels that pass through my space and watching the corners where horses do race. Their queen is like Medusa, I can't stand in her stare. This greatest of players is faced with despair.

Undefeated I must maintain, fall to no man. Look for an answer in the opposing eyes. But no man graces the opposing side. Only lights blinking, circuits thinking. Now man kind rests on my shoulders. Will technology be taking us over. The 21 run's down to 1. How long can we hold it back?

Starting here and for the rest of this album I have the benefit of reading Jeff's liner notes before I write mine so that should be fun. If you like heavy metal, fast guitar harmonies and chess then this is the song for you. I wrote this for all five of us out there. The music for this was written in my apartment near San Francisco in 1988 along with the instrumental I mentioned earlier that was split to 3 songs. I was really enjoying Tony McAlpines neo-classical metal album which of course sprang from all the Yngwie J. Malmsteen stuff in the 80's. The intro is my attempt at fusing that into my prefered style of metal which is Priest/Maiden-esque. The truth is my right hand sucks at picking that stuff but I was able to get it recorded and as payback to Todd from XL I had to record his parts. I don't know how I pulled it off live and when Brian joined the band a few years later we scrapped the intro and just start at the harmony but we scrapped the harmony too and I'd just do it hammer-on style instead of picking everything. Musically it's interesting and diverse though it flowed much better live with a drummer and was quite devestating in the end sections live. I played the guitar solo. On the surface it's lyrically about chess but deeper it's about man vs machine. When you lose all of your chess pieces except the king you have 21 moves to try and avoid a checkmate and the game thus ends in a stalemate, no one wins. So the songs is about this chess genius' desparate 21 move run to try and stalemate the computer and keep mankind for the moment in balance with technology. I remember a few things very vividly about the colaboration on this song. Jeff changed one word to "shun". But what I really remember is the heated exchange with him about the extended end of the song. He was insistant that it lyrically would not line up with the music. Todd was being somewhat diplomatic trying to get him to just try it but Jeff insisted it wouldn't work. I then started the tape and sang it myself with the lyrics and music ending perfectly on cue. Argument over! Sorry Jeff but that's how it was. I'm obviously still carrying that satisfaction around with me for some reason- how sad. As a whole it's a satisfying song for all that went into it but it's kinda' weak with the drum machine. I really love the lyrics though.

Interesting song with an interesting story. Pretty deep. Although I kind of like the song, it is not one of my favorites. I think we had to do some editing of the lyrics to make the verses and chorus fit in their respective musical segments. I recall having issue in the ending section where I kind of narrate my way through to the chorus again. We obviously were able to compromise although when I review it, it just seems ok. The intro music is my favorite part of the song as there is a good hammering of heavy guitar. The story I like but it is my opinion that the general audience were probably totally lost. The way it was written is genius. I'll leave the explanation of the story to Tom since it is his to tell.

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