Velvet Revolver
Album: Contraband
Song: Slither
Reviewed by: Krystal Burns
The Band
Velvet Revolver is a band in and of its own. They were well established before their tunes ever hit the radio waves. Three former Guns N’ Roses band members, Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum, came together in the spring of 2002 for a tribute to their friend and musician Randy Castillo. They soon found themselves back in rock music mode and decided to recruit guitarist/vocalist Dave Kushner. After a long, drawn out search for a lead vocalist, they sealed the formation of Velvet Revolver with Scott Weiland, formerly of Stone Temple Pilots. They view themselves as “the first dangerous band that’s come around in a while—truly dangerous… We really hope to bring some chaos back into the whole world of rock.” Some of their first recordings can be heard on soundtracks including “The Hulk” and “The Italian Job.”
The Music
Velvet Revolver’s debut album, Contraband, was released June 8, 2004. The concept behind the album is best described in the words of Duff, who says, “Our music is very aggressive. There’s always that ‘[beep] you’ element to it. Really that’s all we know how to do.” And according to Weiland, “this whole album for me is pretty much about the poisonous, toxic relationship that I had been in and that catastrophic effects my break-up and subsequent divorce has had on me.” As a whole, Contraband is extremely aggressive with an in-your-face attitude carried throughout. While the lyrics are honest, they are expressed amidst violent and often vulgar imagery.
The Song
“Slither” was actually first released as a single May 24, 2004 and immediately jumped to the top of the modern rock charts, where it’s been holding fairly steadily. Classic, hard-core guitar is the real meat of the song’s success. “Slither”, like the rest of the songs on the album, reflects one aspect of Scott Weiland’s experience in what he refers to as a destructive relationship.
Verse one begins “When you look you see right through me/ Cut the rope I fell to my knees/ Born and broken every single time.” He seems to be referring to the cycle of hope and devastation, which is the natural result of very intense, unstable relationships. Verse two begins with a similar message, “When you seek me you’ll destroy me/ Rape my mind and smell the poppies/ Born and bloodied every single time.” Again, this is reflecting the ups and downs of the relationship and the power of one person over another using a more vividly perverse description.
The chorus talks about the water that “comes to wash away the sins of you and I” and later adds, “It only burns you faster than you’ll ever dry.” Water is usually symbolic of cleansing, forgiveness, and redemption. However, in this case, the song implies the sins are too great and they will always suffer the consequences of their actions.
As “Slither” clearly points out, putting a relationship first in your life is destructive. People are sinful, selfish, and flawed. While we are capable of great love and compassion, we are equally capable of hatred and cruelty. Therefore, human relationships are fragile—given to whims, emotional highs and lows, and always some sort of disappointment or failure in one way or another. You may think I’m being too negative, but that is the reality of the sinful world we live in. If you revolve your life around something or someone so unpredictable and fragile, you may find yourself singing the sad song above.
So how do we cope with human relationships that are destined to break our hearts? We have to make God, who is perfect and holy, the center of our lives. God loves us and cares for us. He doesn’t want us to live in constant emotional turmoil. He created us to have a perfect, fulfilling relationship with himself, and we will only have peace when we revolve our lives around him. Trying to fill God’s shoes with someone else is idolatry. An idol is anything that takes the place of God in a person’s life. God hates idolatry and strictly warned us against it. The first of the Ten Commandments says, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below… for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God… (Exodus 20: 3-5). That includes boyfriends and girlfriends or even husbands and wives. Colossians 1:15-20 tells us that everything was made by God and for God. He wants to be number one in our lives because that’s where he’s supposed to be—that’s why he’s God and we’re not! Of course, he also wants us to enjoy relationships with the people in our lives, but that should always be secondary to our relationship with God.
It’s only when we set our mind on things above that we will have peace with God through Jesus Christ, and a right perspective on our relationships with other people. That way, when things in a romantic relationship or even friendships take a turn for the worse, we can handle it because we have our security and strength in God.
So What Do You Think?
1. Does Velvet Revolver sound like Guns N’ Roes? Is that a good
or bad thing?
2. Can you relate to the song “Slither”?
3. Is there anything that might be an idol in your life?
4. It’s easy to say God should be first in our lives, but how are
we supposed to put that into practice