Two of Us - Our First Song

Written by Joka

Maynard James Keenan- he of Tool, Perfect Circle and Puscifer - is an obvious influence on me. On a podcast with Joe Rogan, Keenan described his song writing process

, and it had nothing to do with creating lyrics and melody in isolation. "I need to hear the finished thing and then put lyrics to it," he said.

I was chuffed to hear it: I can't write lyrics in isolation for shit (yet). But when George Szabo sent me the recording of a song the band had put together back in 2021 - I put Maynard's process to work...and the result was Alien Church's first song 'Two of Us'.

The evidence of my inexperience in songwriting is in the repetition of the lyrics from verse to verse; but it became symbolic of the song's theme about duality.

The song attempts to describe the experience of being two different people in one body, common to those who suffer from mood disorders true, but something everyone has going on internally.

...the repetition of the lyrics from verse to verse became symbolic of the song's theme about duality.

The lyrics describe the change through sleepless observation and how the actions that follow exhibit a self-centred toxicity and a habit of shooting people down before they can shoot first. I mean, that's what I did.

The song is not meant to represent a general exposé on having a mood disorder, far from it. It's simply my own description of what it's like for me; a confession wrapped around an exposed raw nerve.

It's no surprise that this illness was destined to be at the heart of the first song I wrote for the band. And while STFD explores the manic danger of bipolar and Voices the depressive flip-side, Two of Us remains precious to me simply because it came first.