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The Greatest Arsonist

from The Greatest Arsonist by Straight Line Arrival

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about

The title track of this album is where the story truly takes place. Arsonist not only works up the strength to finally leave everything behind. They decide they will burn everything down in the process. The entire city block by block. And Arsonist will finally get to live a new life, without all the traumas of the past. Arsonist is fully one hundred percent dedicated to this plan and knows the only way they will ever be happy is if they completely start over with nothing to lure them back into their old life. Desperately wanting to see the world through innocent eyes again, Arsonist vows to do whatever it takes to be happy.
This song also introduces a sub plot of Arsonist having a cancer scare. At the point in this song, it is something Arsonist views as not a big deal, just their partner over reacting.
This song also introduces Arsonists partner. The one person they plan to bring with them when they leave their frozen wasteland of a town.

During this song I reference multiple thing from my life that I would like to further explain.
During the NODAPL protest, police agencies from all over the country, and the military united to protect the interests of the oil companies. I lived in Bismarck North Dakota the whole time this happenned.
I voted for Jill Stein in 2016 because she came down to the camps and vandalized a bunch of equipment being used to build the Dakota Access Pipeline. Jill Stein had a warrant out in Morton County at the same time I did, and that's the only thing a politician has ever done to directly earn my vote.
Unfortunately the protests exposed an ugly part of my hometown I was unaware of. People I had known my entire life and looked up to all turned out to be absolute racist piece of shit people.
People from my town were fully willing and ready to kill protesters through multiple means. The state was trying to pass laws making it okay to run over protesters in the roads. I heard the "n word" suddenly come back to people's vocabularies.
And when the police sprayed freezing water on protesters in below freezing weather (text book definition of attempting a mass murder).
No one in the community cared. Everyone sucked up misinformation and propoganda from the state about the camps.
Started believing they were making bombs, the cops lit cars on fire and blamed the protesters, illegally arrested hundreds of people, kept them in dog cages, and evicted everyone from the camps with no notice at gunpoint after months of terrerizing them, just so they could take pictures of the camps afterwards, and try to destroy the image of the protesters by pointing out all the trash and everything that the police had thrown all over in the dissaray of the mass forced exit of the NODAPL protesters.
The response from the community I lived in, and their pure hatred of native americans, was the bggest catalyst for me realizing I lived in a Trumpy shithole that had no chance at redemption or ever changing.
I believe, and always will believe, the cities of Mandan, and Bismarck North Dakota would always be better off if they were burnt to the ground.

I held a 21st birthday party for my friend Izzi at my house. Her boyfriend set it up, and it turned out to all be a big ploy for him to get all of izzi's friends around, so he could propose to her in front of everyone. It was a grand romantic gesture, and something I was totally not in on or even saw coming. It was beautiful, and I still have yet to be happy as I was that night.

lyrics

I drink myself to sleep
Though i know that its not healthy
But its eight hours or a liver
No matter what the doctor tells me
And it hurts knowing that everything hurts
And it hurts knowing its bad but it probably only gets worse
And i sing a lot about feeling down
Its been a while since everyone was around
I hope i find what im looking for
When i move on to the next town
I hope that all i needed was some new sights and sounds
I hope that all i needed was for my feet to find some new ground

And when i leave this town
Im gonna do us all a favor
Fill the back of my car up with cans of gasoline
Gonna burn this city down
And everyone will call me
The greatest arsonist that this world has ever seen

Every church every bank
Every bar every mistake
Its all gonna go up in ash
Just the same
Every friend every bridge
All the broken promises
Itll all feel brand new
Like it did when we were kids

my girlfriend thinks that I have cancer
I'd go in but I'm scared of the answer
if there's a heaven ill see god
and ask what the fuck was your plan sir
it seems like you forgot about a little place
in north dakota
where the police tried murdering hundreds
just to match some kind of quota
im sick of freezing in the cold for no fucking good reason
other than ive been too depressed to leave no matter the season
it seems like this place has completely ran out of things for me
and I refuse to let izzi's 21st be the be the last time I felt happy

And when i leave this town
Im gonna do us all a favor
Fill the back of my car up with cans of gasoline
Gonna burn this city down
And everyone will call me
The greatest arsonist that this world has ever seen

Every church every bank
Every bar every mistake
Its all gonna go up in ash
Just the same
Every friend every bridge
All the broken promises
Itll all feel brand new
Like it did when we were kids

I'm gonna do what it takes to be happy and if I die trying than that's alright
I'm gonna do what it takes to be happy and if I die trying than that's alright
I'm gonna do what it takes to be happy and if I die trying than that's alright
I'm gonna do what it takes to be happy and if I die trying than that's alright

Every church every bank
Every bar every mistake
Its all gonna go up in ash
Just the same
Every friend every bridge
All the broken promises
Itll all feel brand new
Like it did when we were kids

credits

from The Greatest Arsonist, released November 14, 2019
drums by Chris Holmes
bass by Tim Julio
everything else done by Sky Husebye

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Straight Line Arrival Fargo, North Dakota

Straight Line Arrival is an independent emo-punk band out of Fargo. Started in 2015 as a solo project of Sable Sky, SLA now includes Tim Julio and Michael Hansen.

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