Original Song | Killer Horses

This has the most fantastical backstory of perhaps any song I’ve ever written, and yet I almost don’t want to share it for that very reason. I will give part of its genesis, but don’t let that deter you from exploring the depths outside of the story, because I’ve intentionally made the message deeper with lots of layering.

Here’s the story: it all started with a pack of gum that my little sister got. On the inside of the box, there was a cartoon of a horse with a thought bubble showing a horn. My sister was telling me about it like, “Cute! He wants to be a unicorn! Horses have dreams too.” I was like, “That’s not cute. That’s unhealthy.”

Horses should not dream of having horns. Horses should have a healthy body image of their species as it is naturally. Idealism only works if it is a functional ideal. How is that horse going to realize that dream? He cannot, which will lead to depression and irrational feelings of failure. If he does realize it, the only way to do so would be by somehow acquiring a horn and fixing it to his own body, which seems super sketchy at best. Is he just going to go around killing rhinos and collecting their body parts as trophies? That horse is going to grow up to be some warped serial killer of animals who mutilates bodies as a sense of beauty -- all because he thinks that he is not good enough the way he is.

And then my sister and I had about a twenty minute discussion on how serial killers are born, the importance of how we shape ideals, and why it’s dangerous to not accept yourself the way you are.
Granted, most of this conversation was for the sake of entertainment, and I made one or two giant leaps from innocent gum package to murderous psychopathic horse, but I was also basing the conversation on real life experience.
(I served on a jury for a murder trial last year.)

https://aniegarner.bandcamp.com/track/killer-horses

Lyrics:
benign intentions can be lethal weapons
the devil has horns and i’ve got qUestions
the image of man in my reflection
the first cut’s depth will be redemption

ivory tusks, towers, and keys
irony never was lost on me
forewarn, forsworN, iron fortress
forebear, four mares, killer horses

despise your genetics, decry false prosthetics
genesis ends where genocIde exits
invisible man with divisible ethics
the visual, both static and kinetiC

ivory tusks, towers, and keys
irony never was lost on me
forewarn, forsworn, iron fOrtress
forebear, four mares, killer horses

i’m gunning
for the higher forces
i’m running
wild with the horses
i’m gunning
for the higher forces
i’m Running
wild with the horses

benign intentions can be lethal weapons
the devil has horNs and i’ve got questions
the image of man in my reflection
the first cut’s depth will be redemption

ivory tusks, towers, and keys
irony never was lost on me
forewarn, forSworn, iron fortress
forebear, four mares, killer horses
i’m running
wild with the horses