Shinedown‘s current single, “A Symptom of Being Human,” begins with the lyric “I can still remember me and Miss November Rain,” a reference to the Guns N’ Roses song. Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Brent Smith shares that the line came about during a writing session he had with bassist Eric Bass.
“We were kind of trading lines back and forth,” Smith recalls. “I don’t remember which one of us came up with the ‘November Rain’ line, but it just, I don’t know, it kinda put me back into that era when I was a kid and when I was growing up.”
Smith makes a similar kind of reference in the 2018 Shinedown hit “GET UP,” in which he sings, “Everybody wants to sing their song/ So, Marvin Gaye, ‘What’s Going On?"” Perhaps not coincidentally, both “Symptom” and “GET UP” deal with mental health.
“It was just something for me which was very real,” Smith says of the “November Rain” lyric. “It took me back to a place in time with my own symptoms of being human, and it was just something very naturally that was said.”
“It reminded me of, like, my youth, and, like, when I fell in love for the first time,” he continues. “That song was on the radio that summer. I think it was more nostalgia than anything.”
Shinedown recently performed an acoustic rendition of “Symptom” as part of a performance special called The Library Sessions. The video is raising money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
If you are in crisis or know someone in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
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