Frontman Colin Meloy told Pitchfork: “I was reading the Van Morrison biography by Johnny Rogan last summer; I was in Ireland, and there’s a section where he talks about the political issues in Northern Ireland, which included a section on the Shankill Butchers. The Shankill Butchers were a group of Protestant men who at night would get wasted and then get cleavers and butcher knives and go out to attack Catholics; this was in the 70s. At least one of their victims was hung up by his feet and skinned alive, really horrific. Apparently, parents at the time would actually use it as a cautionary tale and tell their kids that if they didn’t eat their greens or do what they were told, the Shankill Butchers would come and get them. I’ve spoken to Irish people who remember that as kids growing up in that time. So it struck me as something that has such fairy tale proportions that it’s timeless in its horror.”