why you gotta kick me when i’m down? Lyrics
I see you, you on the edge of your seat
Ain't you got some place to be?
Was hoping the suspense would kill you
Tell me, how would you begin?
Watching and waiting to sink your teeth in
Come on and give me your expert opinion, ah, fuck it
I settle down in a dump
Heard a crowd screaming "Jump"
So I came to the window
(They always wanna kick you when you're down)
I said, "What the fuck have I done?"
They said, "We just want your blood
You know we like you better in limbo"
(They always wanna kick you when you're down)
[Pre-Chorus]
So come on and take a shot, you just can't get enough
Don't let the fact that you know nothing stop you talking now
'Cause when all is said and done, my name's still on your tongue
[Chorus]
But tell me, why you gotta kick me when I'm down?
You better pray I don't get up this time around (Ooh)
And why you tryna put me in the ground?
Don't you know I'm a seed? (I'm a seed) I won't stop at the roof
Go ahead, bury me; this is how I grow, it's how I thrive (Ooh)
So why you gotta kick me when I'm down? (Down)
(Why you gotta kick me when I'm down? Ooh)
Yeah, I know it's all in good fun, but
Don't say it's coming from love, no
I see those arms in akimbo
(They always wanna kick you when you're down)
And don't set that phaser to stun 'cause
What doesn't kill me, well, it better run like hell
Yeah, you better run like hell
[Pre-Chorus]
So come on and take a shot, you just can't get enough
Don't let the fact that you know nothing stop you talking now
'Cause when all is said and done, my name's still on your tongue
[Chorus]
So tell me, why you gotta kick me when I'm down?
You better pray I don't get up this time around (Ooh)
And why you tryna put me in the ground?
Don't you know I'm a seed? (I'm a seed) I won't stop at the roof
Go ahead, bury me; this is how I grow, it's how I thrive (Ooh)
[Bridge]
Remember this line that you crossed
Look back and stare at the dot
Know there's no turning back now
Now, that you've opened the gates
Corrupted the memory, error, failsafe
(Commence the countdown)
(They always wanna kick you when you're down)
Remember this line that you crossed
Look back and stare at the dot
Know there's no way to fix us, no
Oh, God, what the fuck have you done?
I loved you like daughters, I loved you like sons
About
“why you gotta kick me when i’m down?” came, according to Jordan Fish, years ago when he created the beat. It talks about Oliver Sykes’ relationship with the fans. Oli has spoken about it:
I played it one of my mates—all of us have got mates outside the band that we use as trusted, honest sounding boards—and when I played him that, he burst out laughing, saying it was the heaviest thing he’d ever heard. It’s not guitar-based heavy, it’s urban heavy. And his reaction made me go back the guys and say: “We need to finish this.”
This song may be a prediction of the way that some fans have perceived the new album. In an Instagram post he spoke about how he felt they were “well within their right to hate this.”
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
It’s Oli talking about his relationship with fans of our band and how they might have opinions about him and his personal life. Yet it also goes deeper than that. It comes from a personal place, from a time when things weren’t necessarily going his or our way. Oh, it has my local village’s kids’ choir on there, too—another Oli brainwave. It reminded me of Pink Floyd or “It’s a hard knock life.”
The choir actually consists of a joint-effort between the professional Choir Noir and the Brightwalton Primary School Choir in England. The small primary school even tweeted about recording with the band in July 2018:
Later, Oliver commented how the song was still “up in the air” due to the track’s vulgar language and the students being from a Catholic primary school.
- 2.MANTRA
- 4.in the dark
- 6.ouch
- 7.medicine
- 9.why you gotta kick me when i’m down?
- 10.fresh bruises
- 11.mother tongue
- 12.heavy metal
