Do you wanna start a cult with me?
I'm not vibrating like I oughta be
I need a purpose, I can't keep surfing
Through this existential misery
Now, we're gonna need some real estate
But if I choose my words carefully
Think I could fool you that I'm the guru
Wait, how do you spell "epiphany"?
[Chorus]
Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off
Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot
Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one
'Cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra
Yeah!
[Verse 2]
Could I have your attention, please?
It's time to tap into your tragedy
Think you could use a new abuser
Close your eyes and listen carefully
Imagine you're stood on a beach
Water gently lapping at your feet
But now you're sinking, what were you thinking?
That's all the time we have this week
Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off
Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot
Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one
'Cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra
[Bridge]
And I know this doesn't make a lot of sense
But do you really wanna think all by yourself now?
All I'm asking for's a little bit of faith
You know it's easy to believe
And I know this doesn't make a lot of sense
You know you gotta work the corners of your mind now
All I'm asking for's a little bit of faith
You know it's easy to, so easy to believe
[Chorus]
Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off
Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot
Before the truth will set you free, it'll piss you off
Before you find a place to be, you're gonna lose the plot
Too late to tell you now, one ear and right out the other one
'Cause all you ever do is chant the same old mantra
Oh!
About
“MANTRA” is a powerful but eerie alternative rock anthem that depicts how people blindly follow others. The highly-anticipated debut single off the band’s sixth studio album has Oli asking for people to get behind him to start a cult.
Like their previous album, That’s The Spirit, this song along with the rest of the album was solely produced by Oli Sykes and keyboardist Jordan Fish to allow the band full autonomy of their sound. Oli spoke about this during an interview after the track’s world premiere on Annie Mac’s BBC Radio One Hottest Record show:
We want to do heavy in a completely different way. We wanna do catchy in a completely different way. I mean this is the hardest record we ever wrote and these songs are the hardest songs because we really challenged ourselves to do something completely different and not lean on anything we’ve done before.
The single and upcoming album were teased by the band via a phone number which, when called, announced small amounts of information about upcoming music as well as various social media posts.
The inspiration for this song comes from a Netflix documentary called Wild Wild Country about the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his followers. Oli shared how the documentary influenced his writing on the song:
I was watching all these people devoted to this one guy, doing this crazy shit for him. As I was watching it and trying to write lyrics at the same time, I was drawing these similarities to cults and love.
Oli further explained how the song includes aspects from his divorce which took place before writing the new record:
Starting a relationship—especially a marriage—is like starting a cult, a small two-man cult, because you have to give yourself over completely to this person, you have to trust them, you have to love them unconditionally even if you start thinking ‘This is a bit suspect’ or ‘This is a bit dodgy.’ That’s what a relationship is, it’s exactly the same as a cult so that’s where the thinking behind the song came from.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
After the premiere of “MANTRA” on BBC Radio 1, Bring Me The Horizon vocalist Oliver Sykes stated the following when interviewed by Annie Mac:
This song came very late in the writing process because we wrote loads of cool stuff and loads of different things and everyday we were like “What are we going to show people first?” because we know how this works, we want to always change what we do and we always want to write something new to change it up, but we also don’t want to alienate everyone that’s joined us along the way and that’s supported us from the start.
The video is about this guy who starts a cult, that’s me. Basically, he’s depressed, disillusioned and brainwashed from watching TV and doing nothing with his life. He decides to start this cult which does a lot better than he expected and gets out of hand until the rest of the world is in it. The government is talking about it and it becomes a problem. Then the guy who started the cult is in the same position at the end, he’s still watching TV and unhappy because he realizes he doesn’t want all this stuff. He doesn’t want to be loved by everyone.
Not really. “MANTRA” came a bit later. We wrote a lot of cool stuff but we were kind of scared, like ‘What are we gonna show people first?’ We’re really proud of everything we’ve done, but how are we not going to completely alienate everybody when we show them this record?
I actually had a little bit of a meltdown about it and then we ended up writing this song. It just felt right. It’s just different enough. It’s not safe, but it’s a bit of what you know and love about us while pushing it out there. It’s not that it’s not representative, but every song on the record is completely different. It’s a lot more experimental than our last record.
- 2.MANTRA
- 4.in the dark
- 6.ouch
- 7.medicine
- 10.fresh bruises
- 11.mother tongue
- 12.heavy metal
