Burn It Down
by Michelle Dockrey & Tony Fabris

The legend of the firebird
Is one of transformation
If you dare to take the journey
And you give the wolf his due

Let the flame inspire
For you are your own creation
Throw your fear upon the pyre
And let it rise as something new

So you think you don't burn bright enough?
I tell you it's not true

Burn it down, burn it down, burn it down
Throw your fear upon the fire and burn it down
Throw your voice out to the wind
Feel the heat upon your skin
As you hunger, so begin
Burn it down

Last night you were dreaming
But you cannot quite remember
It's all dark and misty-seeming now
Like patterns in the sand

Wake to comets streaming
Kindled from a lonely ember
All your wishes colored gleaming
Are the stars held in your hand

Let them soar and let them smolder
May they never fall to land

Burn it down, burn it down, burn it down
Throw your fear upon the fire and burn it down
Throw your stars into the sky
Let the darkness hear your cry
Teach the cinders how to fly
Burn it down

Voices whisper, "never"
Fear the fire will turn to ash
And they would hold you back forever
To protect you from the pain

A single blazing feather
Holds the heat of all your passion
Bring your head and hands together
Only hear the heart's refrain

Burn away the haunted shadows
It's your love that will remain

Burn it down, burn it down, burn it down
Throw your fear upon the fire and burn it down
Throw your heart into the song
Feel the rhythm hot and strong
And the fire will sing along
Burn it down

Burn it down, burn it down, burn it down
Throw your fear upon the fire and burn it down
Throw your heart into the song
Feel the rhythm hot and strong
Hear the fire sing along
Burn it down

About the Song

Vixy:
Once upon a time, a friend read an article about LED throwies: a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused LED, and a rare earth magnet, taped together. Nowadays you can buy them pre-made, but at the time you had to make your own. There was cool internet video of people throwing them at public art or condemned buildings at night. My husband & I hosted a gathering, maybe a dozen people; we made bunches of them, and the party set off to Gas Works Park that night to throw them at the rusted-out plant works. (Some of our throwies are probably still up there.)

I didn't go to the park. I said with a laugh, "someone's got to stay behind to bail you all out of jail." The truth is that I was scared of getting in trouble. The party came home, breathless and excited, trying to convey how indescribably beautiful it had been. Someone took video, but nothing really did it justice. For years afterward, I regretted not going. I promised myself I'd never again hold back from doing something I truly wanted to do, not if the only reason was fear.

Years later, I developed a crush on somebody, but I was too scared to tell him. He was fascinating and intelligent and had this unusual, amazing life. I knew I was not remotely interesting enough. How do you impress someone who literally plays with fire for a living?

At some point I thought back to the night of the throwie party. And the rest, as they say, is history.

About the Songwriting

Vixy:
This song began as me talking to myself in the shower. I don't remember exactly when it moved from pep talk to filk song, but I do remember that I had to change the melody early on because I'd accidentally used part of someone else's song. (That happens a lot— sometimes you don't realize that bit of a tune in your head is in your head because you heard it somewhere. If you're lucky it's at least one of your own.)

The overall fire theme is because the above-mentioned crush was a fire spinner, but I liked the idea of fire representing change and transformation, and of the firebird that burns and rises new.

The second verse is a deliberate reference to the throwies.

Many versions of the Russian firebird fable feature a wolf who advises the hero. It usually goes like this:

Wolf: Okay, you must do this task, but remember, don't touch the thing. You can take the other stuff, but don't touch the thing.
Hero: I won't touch the thing.
Hero: *touches the thing*
Everything: *falls apart*
Wolf: *helps Hero escape*

Wolf: Okay, you get a second chance in this second castle, but there's another thing. Don't touch the thing.
Hero: I will totally not touch the thing.
Wolf: No srsly, don't touch the thing.
Hero: Nooooot touching the thing.
Hero: *touches the thing*
Wolf: *facepaw*
Everything: *falls apart*
Wolf: *helps Hero escape*

Wolf: Okay, third time's the charm. DO NOT TOUCH THE THING.
Hero: *touches the thing*
Everything: *falls apart*
Wolf: WHY DO I BOTHER.

I couldn't resist giving the wolf a nod.

About the Recording

Tony:
When performing the song live, the intro section of the song is intended to gently repeat while Vixy introduces the song. It's essentially a slow version of the first part of the song's main chorus. For the studio recording, in order to justify its existence, it needed to be something interesting on its own, like a different movement of a larger piece. There are certain pieces of music which do something similar that I'm very fond of: "A Farewell to Kings" by Rush (and many other Rush and prog rock pieces for that matter), the "Foreplay" section of "Foreplay/Long Time" by Boston, the Béla Fleck cover of "Hoe Down" on the Outbound album, etc.

Also, without doing something texturally different with this intro, it ended up sounding too similar to the intro to Uplift, elsewhere on this album. So having Blake's piano and the strings there to fill in the texture turned out to be just perfect. I also like how the song's position in the album sequence order allows for this intro to gently ease you into the start of the album.

This is the second piece of Blake's piano which I recorded for this album, and this time, I had finally managed to fix the MIDI recording issue in my DAW which had vexed me on I Hope You Don't Mind, so it made the process of editing orders of magnitude easier.

After the intro, there's a count-in of four "thump" sounds: That's me hitting the top of my guitar, like I do when we play it live. When I was preparing the track for mastering, I noticed they were the loudest item in the song, so I had to correct them down a bit.

I had a huge amount of fun recording the bass line for this one. I'm not normally a bass player, so I don't have the same set of instincts that a real bass player would have. Many of the songs on this album have the wonderful Chris Clark doing the bass, but I reserved a few songs for myself to to the bass line, partly because it's so fun, and partly because I had strong opinions how I wanted it to sound. In the end, there are some things in this bass line I'm particularly proud of. I like the high/low drop in the main riff a lot, for example, it adds a dimension to the song that it didn't have before.

Seanan got to do the backing vocals on this one, mostly because it's one of her favorite songs of ours. Ironically, Seanan's voice doesn't appear on the song Missing Part, even though she wrote that one and it's on the same album where she's singing backup on this song. Funny how that works out sometimes. This also happened with Blake on Anna as well.