MEANINGS
s t o r i e s b e h i n d t h e s o n g s
All quotes are from Jonathan Davis.
From KORN the 94 self titled album
BALL TONGUE: It's about a guy they had to work with on a T-shirt. He either had a pierced tongue
or a wart or something on his tongue and he was a dick to them.
CLOWN: "We were playing a show in San Diego and this skinhead guy came up and said, 'Fuck
you! Go back to Bakersfield!' I didn't understand that and I bent down and he tried to swing at me. Our
road manager Jeff knocked his ass out. So that song is 'Clown'..."
FAGET: "Everyone thinks I'm bashing gay people in this song, and I'm not. It's really about me
going through high school being called 'pussy', 'queer', and all that stuff, about getting picked on by all
these jocks."
SHOOTS AND LADDERS: "The lyrics are all from nursery rhymes, and a lot of nursery rhymes go
back to the Middle Ages. They're actually pretty twisted if you know the stories behind them, like about
Black Death and stuff."
HELMET IN THE BUSH: "It's about a speed problem that I had. You know, you do a lot of speed
and -- if you're a male -- your penis retracts severely." In the song he says: 'Please God let me sleep
tonight.' Jonathan really had trouble sleeping, because that's what it does to you.
DADDY: "People think Daddy was written because my dad fucked me up the ass, but that's not
what the song's about. It wasn't about my dad or my mum. When I was a kid I was being abused by
someone else and I went to my parents and told them about it. They thought I was lying and joking
around, so they never did shit about it. They didn't belive it was happening to their son. I don't like to talk
about that song, this is the most I've ever talked about it."
"
From Life Is Peachy
CHI: "Chi is about a lot of alcohol and drug abuse; people turn to that when they have problems so
that they won't have to feel their pain." Jonathan has said that Chi is actually Chi Cheng from the
Deftones: "We named it after him because he used to call it reggae, and he loves reggae music."
SWALLOW: "That's about being paranoid. Drug-induced paranoia."
LOST: "It's the sterotypical thing about your best friend meeting a chick, and then you're nothing."
GOOD GOD: "It's about a guy I knew in school who I thought was my friend, but who fucked me.
He came into my life with nothing, hung out at my house, lived off me, and made me do shit I didn't really
wanna do. I was into new romantic music and he was a mod, and he'd tell me if I didn't dress like a mod
he wouldn't be my friend anymore. Whenever I had plans to go on a date with a chick he'd sabotage it,
because he didn't have a date or nothing. He was a gutless fucking nothing. I haven't talked to him for
years."
MR. RODGERS: "Back in the day when I was a speed freak, um... even further back when I was a
little kid watchin' Mr. Rogers, that shit was scary. He was a freaky old man... Land of Makebelieve and
Mr. FuckinMcFeely and shit... made me sick. So back when I was doing speed, like for 5 or 6 days I'd
be trippin out and my brain would start to get freaky and get schizophrenic and stuff, and I'd tape it and
watch it everyday over and over... I don't know, I was sick in the head. As a kid he told me to be polite
and all it did was get me picked on. I fucking hate that man. Thanks for making me polite and trusting
everyone, and easy to take advantage of. So I spent 3 months on that one song, just tweakin' on it, and it
was totally just my Mr. Rogers obsession, about how evil I thought he was. Pretty much drug induced."
KUNT: "People think it's sexist but it isn't. It's more subconcious bitching at all the women who've
been with me in my life. It's not about women in general, just those women who hurt me. Initially, we
wrote it to send to American radio for a joke, because they always chop up all the other songs. So we
were going to send a 'real' single seven days later."
WICKED: It's an Ice Cube song from his album "Predator". Chino, the lead singer of the Deftones,
covers vocals.
ASS ITCH: "That was the last song I wrote, and I was so burned at writing out lyrics because
everytime I write I get depressed because I start thinking about things, you know? So the whole song is
about that. In the chorus it says, 'Before long, my song will be dying'. It's because I put myself on the line
all the time and for what? Because people aren't going to be listening to it anyway."
KILL YOU: "It's about a relative I first met when I was 12. I fucking hate that bitch. She's the most
evil, fucked up person I've met in my whole life. She hated my guts. She did everything she could to make
my life hell. Like, when I was sick she'd feed me tea with Tabasco, which is really hot pepper oil. She'd
make me drink it and say, 'You have to burn that cold out, boy'. Fucked up shit like that. So every night
when I'd go to sleep, I'd dream of killing that bitch. In some sick way I had a sexual fantasy about her,
and I don't know what that stems from or why, but I always dreamt about fucking her and killing her."
From Follow The Leader
IT'S ON: "'It's On' is my shit peer pressure song. Me being so stressed out going out and partying.
Everybody's just going 'Come on dude, it's on.' That's partying, it's alcohol, cocaine, women. All that
wrapped into one. In the chorus I talked about why am I really doing this? It's all my fault that I'm doing
this because all the alcohol, the booze, and the chicks do is just make it worse. They just rearrange all the
problems in a different order that I can deal with at that moment."
FREAK ON A LEASH: "One of the best titles I've ever heard for a song. That's my song against the
music industry. Like me feeling like I'm a fuckin' pimp, a prostitute. Like I'm paraded around. I'm this
freak paraded around but I got corporate America fuckin' making all the money while it's taking a part of
me. It's like they stole something from me, they stole my innocence and I'm not calm anymore. I worry
constantly."
GOT THE LIFE: "That's a song baggin' on myself. How everything's always handed to me. How I
look up to God and don't want this anymore. Like I want something more out of life than all this, and I've
got everything I really need but I sometimes don't like. I don't know how to explain it."
DEAD BODIES EVERYWHERE: "That was the song about my parents trying to keep me out of the
music business. My father was in it and he knew how it was and I totally understand now that I have a
son. I want Nathan to be a musician but I don't want him to go through the hell I went through. That's the
same thing my Dad was doing. A lot of people can relate to it, because it's like the dads are wanting their
sons to be football players and their sons want to be doctors or something. That peer pressure is like
trying to make them something they're really not. And the Dead Bodies thing is like so I did it and all I got
out of it was dead bodies everywhere and got all traumatized. Thanks a lot Dad, Mom."
CHILDREN OF THE KoRn: "That's the song that Ice Cube is on -- Cube came up with the title. I fed
off of what he wrote, he was talking about growing up and puberty. Dictating what he can do, like how
you gonna tell me how to live and who to fuck? And all this stuff. And I took that and in my stuff I was
talking about being a kid always known as the fuckin' town faggot. It's funny how things change. That
some of these people picked on me and all of a sudden look who's laughing now. Also, in another of the
verses I talked about all these parents fucking hating me for what I do, saying I'm corrupting their
children, but in turn these parents need to step outside of themselves and really listen to what I'm talking
about. Then I think they can understand that they were kids before. They're just really quick to judge me.
All the Children Of The Korn are all our Korn fans. All those kids going through that shit and feeling what
I feel."
B.B.K.: "Big black cock! That's what I call a jack and coke. Those little glasses they serve in
Europe and everything. That's what I named it, big black cock. And that's another song about me dealing
with the pressures of this album and how I, you know, I'm trying to kill myself, but you know? Do I really
want to kill myself? Things I'm just questioning myself. Most of this is self-structured."
PRETTY: "It's a story about this little girl that came into the coroner's office when I was working
there and she was fucked by her dad. She was an 11 month old little baby girl. Her legs were broken
back behind her and he just fucked her like a toy doll and chucked her in the bathroom. It was the most
heinous thing I've ever seen in my life and I still have nightmares about it."
ALL IN THE FAMILY: "Fred was there after KornTV and we said, 'Let's do a song together. Hey
man, let's go back and forth and rip on each other like an old school battle.' I don't know whose idea it
was, I can't remember if it was mine or Fieldy's or Fred's, but we came up with the idea and we started
writing and we worked on it together. I came up with some bags on myself for Fred to say. It was all in
good natured fun."
RECLAIM MY PLACE: "This one is about the whole band and about all my life being called a
homosexual. And then I became this big rock star in a band and I'm still called a fag even by my own
band. So it's like I was fuckin' pissed off at them. It's like erase them all because I'm gonna reclaim my
place and say hey, they owe a lot to me for what I did, and I owe a lot to them back. But, it still kinda
sucks. I've never ever gotten away from that fucking 'fag' title, just because I'm a sensitive kinda guy,
kinda feminine. It really sucks."
JUSTIN: "Justin was the kid dying terminally with intestinal cancer. His last dying wish was to meet
us and it really freaked me out. That threw a whole bunch of new kind of pressures on my head. That's
really intense. Someone's gonna die and his last thing he wants to do is come hang out with us. So I truly
just freaked out. It's like why would you want to meet me? What makes me so special? And in turn I talk
about how I admire his strength and his life. I couldn't stare at him because he was so content he was
gonna die. No one could look him in the eyes. I totally admire his strength. I wish I had it."
SEED: "That's all about the same thing again. Laying in bed in my hotel room, thinking about do I
really need all this stuff? All this pressure on me? Because I'm a stressed out freak. It's about Nathan, it's
about every time that I look into his eyes, I see myself how I used to be, innocent and stress free. I'm
kind of jealous of it. It really sucks, I used to be that way. It's like I have to work so hard at this thing in
my life. I have to become a stressed out freak. I put food on the table for my child. Every time I look in
his eyes, I just see myself staring right back at my ass laughing. I was like care free, innocent as a child.
It's really weird and I'm really jealous of it."
CAMELTOSIS: "That's a love song. It's about women in general, women who hurt me. It's Tre's
lyrics. He's going on about chicks and my chorus is like I'm so scared to love anyone and really let them
in after I got hurt really really bad by a girl. I've let Renee in a little bit, to be honest, but I'll never be that
in love ever again. That's what I'm saying, if you've loved twice, you're gonna get fucked, 'cause you
usually do."
MY GIFT TO YOU: "Renee always wanted me to write her a love song and that's why I called it
'My Gift To You'. I always had a fantasy of fucking her and choking her to death. I fantasize about what
it would look like, me in her body and watching me do it. So it's like a really sick fucked up song. I love
her so much, I want to take her out of this world. It's really strange. She used to leave notes on my
pillow, like 25 ways she'd like to kill me. She's got this weird death fetish. We're kinda fuckin' freaky.
She got it. She's all 'Thank you, that's kinda fucked up. I was expecting a fuckin' I love you, baby kinda
song.' I'm all, 'No, you know me.' I mean, I can't do that."
Email: pizowell@hotmail.com