The Infected by Four Year Strong

In Some Way, Shape or Form album

As your average music listener, I'm just trying to find music with good, inspiring lyrics, but that are tied to a good beat. They are incomplete without each other. I find this task to be somewhat difficult to do, but Four Year Strong is a band with good lyrics and a happy upbeat melody. Sometimes people call their music genre "Melodic Hardcore."

To the contrary of my usual music taste, Four Year Strong's lyrics are often about relationships. I usually tend to stay away from relationship songs because they are often mushy gushy or extremely bitter. Bitter appeals to me, but in songs it often comes off whiny or like someone just needs to grow some balls and get over it. I like Four Year Strong because they are never bitchy, and even if the song is about a breakup it still is a cheery song to sing along to.



While their song, The Infected may not be my favorite song, (Beatdown in the Key of Happy will forever be my favorite!) it by far has my favorite lyrics. Overall, the song is about people changing, for the worst. "Time has seemed to change my face."6 Often referred to as a midlife crisis, it's not uncommon for people to wake up and look in the mirror and be surprised by changes, and hate who they have become (not just appearance-wise). "In the mirror stares my enemy" 24 


Throughout most of the song it may appear as if the changes that have happened could be the singers own fault, but as the song goes on, the blame is placed.

• "I was ugly like you yesterday"9 First of all OUCH! But being around someone that has an ugly personality can make you so much different.
• "You're a fake"31 Honestly, being around fake people will change who you are, or at least how you act. 
• "Can I take you back to when it was real, when you cared about the way I feel?"35-36 Times change, people change, enough said. 

Something repeated throughout the chorus-less song is "Reinvent me."11, 29 While most of the song seems like his change as a person is only being stated to be recognized, when he says reinvent me, he is really recognizing that he needs to change himself and become a better person, the person he really wants to be. Even though it is only two words in the whole song, I think they are the most important. People need to remember that there is always an option to reinvent yourself, it's never to late to become the person you want to be.

1. The sun burnt out today
2. Tomorrow's just another day
3. So far away
4. When everything's so cold and grey
5. Awake in a daze
6. Time has seemed to change my face
7. Look away! 
8. Look away! 
9. I was ugly like you yesterday
10. 
    
11. Reinvent me
12. 
    
13. Don't panic
14. You're getting too close
15. It's contagious
16. It's turning you into everything that you've hated
17. Destroyed and created
18. The Infected
19. I'm making history
20. I swam across the seven seas
21. And I scraped my knees
22. From bowing down to royalty
23. So face to face
24. In the mirror stares my enemy
25. Cuz all I see
26. Instead of me
27. Is just another fucking casualty
28. 
    
29. Reinvent me
30. 
    
31. You're a fake
32. Disconnected
33. Lost your heart
34. Self-inflicted
35. Can I take you back to when it was real
36. When you cared about the way that I feel
37. http://explorerockmusic.blogspot.com/2013/07/song-meaning-analysis-dont-stop.html