Minus 200 is an alternative indie band from Phoenix Arizona
The music of Minus 200 is an amalgamation of vibrant vocals, inventive rhythms, rich guitars, and an electric violin sound unlike anything out there.
Song Info
Genre
Charts
#154 today
Peak #19
#39 in subgenre
Peak #7
Author
Bree Beal
Rights
BMI
Uploaded
November 24, 2004
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.2 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00
Story behind the song
This song is so straightforward that you may wonder why I would bother doing an explication about it at all. Anyone who speaks English can tell that this song is about being angry. Well…Although there hasn’t been much confusion about the overall tone of the song, there are some finer points I would like to explain and at least one issue in the music video that needs clarification.
Anger is merely a symptom. The problem is that this symptom stays basically the same regardless of the source. Anger can be caused by fear, need, indignation, instinct, pain…the list goes on, but the outward symptom is basically the same. For things like fear and need, anger is an immediate help, blocking out anything that might hinder the need to react to a threat; however, when it comes to indignation, it has the potential to work adversely. When anger is felt but not expressed, pressure builds like a pot of boiling water with the lid on. Certain situations can cause an atmosphere in which anger is fed, but not expressed. It is these types of situations that “Boiling Over” is written about.
Have you ever felt completely helpless in a situation? Maybe your boss or teacher treated you badly, but you were too afraid of being fired or getting on the teacher’s bad side to speak up for yourself. Maybe you were bullied but lacked the strength to fight back. Perhaps, you were once drafted to fight in a war that you didn’t support or had lies told about you that damaged your reputation irrevocably. In any of these situations, it is likely that you felt anger, and also likely that you were unable to gain any kind of satisfactory compensation for your pain. Justice was never done, and bitterness by now has set in assuring that, even if amends are made further down the line, the damage will never fully be undone.
During the time in which I wrote the lyrics to Boiling Over, I was crippled by this same helpless rage and desperately needed to “let off some steam”. This song was, in a large part, therapy for me. The only outlet I had at the time was a pile of junk on the side of my house which I would literally take a metal baseball bat to when I couldn’t handle it anymore (it’s the same bat I use in the music video). The thing about dealing with anger in this way, however, is that it’s not permanent. If you want to keep a pot from boiling over, a temporary fix will involve letting some steam out of the pot, but the boiling can only be permanently suppressed if the heat is turned off. In the same way, my outbursts on the side of my house would help temporarily, but to truly solve the problem, I knew that I would have to forgive those taking advantage of me. Unfortunately, I was stuck in a position in which the crimes against me were still being perpetuated and therefore my metaphorical burner was constantly on. The only relief I had were my “sessions” on the side of the house.
The scenes in the music video are parallels (some metaphorical but all based on real situations) to real life conundrums and the imaginary or real ways in which they were dealt with. When the picture de-saturates (goes to black and white) it is depicting an imagined (wishful) reaction. For instance when Rane violently clears the desk in front of him and grasps the man in the suit by the tie while screaming at him…..that is imagined. You will also notice (if you pay close attention) that, in these imagined scenes, we will suddenly be wearing all black. The black is supposed to represent the dark side of our human nature (the silt from the minus 200 metaphor for all of you who have read our name explanation).
Now, there has been some confusion about the significance of the little girl in the video that warrants clarification. She is a representation of the innocence and helplessness I talked about earlier in this explication (what is more innocent or helpless than a little girl?) as well as a physical representation of the light side of human nature (the cla
Lyrics
It’s rising
Surfacing it cannot hide
My anger
Suffocating from inside
God help me
You will pay for all that you’ve done in time
Please just stay away from me
I’m boiling over now, it’s over now
Say a prayer for me
I’m boiling over now
You think you
Hold some power over me
But we all
Are prisoner to things unseen
Emotion controls the darker side of me now
You stacked all the numbers on your side
Convinced you held the light
The helplessness I felt has left a scar
Seared upon my mind
How long I was forced to bite my tongue
While knowing I was right
How was I to stand up on my own
How was I to fight
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