Bring Me The Horizon‘s new song, “Dehumanized,” was inspired by the band’s decision to wave the flag of Palestine at their headlining Reading Festival set last year, Metal Injection shares. The song’s content, as well as the music video which features humans in a slaughterhouse, is meant to ask the listener the question, “At what point does suffering become unacceptable to [you]?”
Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon shared more information about the song’s meaning in an Instagram post, writing: “This video was actually inspired by this book I’m reading [right now] called Tender Is The Flesh. It’s fucked, have read if you can…[“Dehumanized”] was born from an event that happened last year. I was told that peacefully raising a flag on stage in recognition of a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding where children were being killed would most likely carry career ending consequences.” Sykes is referring to Bring Me The Horizon‘s headlining Reading Festival set when the band chose to have Palestinian flags onstage, potentially risking political or legal repercussions for their actions.
Sykes continued to say, “It made me [realize] how we are silently we’re conditioned to suppress our humanity. We think [we] are free, conscious beings, when in truth we are driven by forces we barely understand. ‘Some of us are butchers, some of us are lambs, send me to the abattoir, let’s find out which I am,’ is the crux of this song [“Dehumanized”]. The abattoir is a metaphor for being put in a place where my very livelihood is facing execution. When empathy becomes an act [of] anarchy, then [you] discover whether your values are real. I want this video to take that central theme to the worst imaginable conclusion. A fully operational human slaughterhouse.”
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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