Devour (song)

Last updated
"Devour"
Devour - Cover Art.jpg
Single by Shinedown
from the album The Sound of Madness
ReleasedMay 5, 2008
Genre Alternative metal
Length3:49
Label Atlantic
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Rob Cavallo
Shinedown singles chronology
"Heroes"
(2006)		"Devour"
(2008)		"Second Chance"
(2008)
Music video
"Devour" on YouTube

"Devour" is a song by American rock band Shinedown. The song was released as the first single in promotion of the band's third studio album, The Sound of Madness . The track landed online and at multi-format rock radio outlets nationwide on May 5.

Contents

Vocalist Brent Smith said that the single was "a letter to the President," and that it is about Smith's distaste towards George W. Bush. It was their second No. 1 song on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Background

"Devour" is an anti-Iraq War song that criticizes the presidency of George W. Bush. Smith wrote the song after the band took a trip to Iraq. [1]

"I looked at a lot of people that were there, men and women from all different kinds of walks of life, all different races, all nationalities, and there was like a lot of them that were really desensitized, they were tired. So I wrote this song called 'Devour' about the end of George W. Bush's presidency. And what I thought of what he's done over the time that he was president. I hope that he will hear the song and that he'll want to sit down and talk with me about it, I'd like to ask him a couple questions."

— Brent Smith

Fifteen years after the release of the song, Smith said: "While I was in Fallujah, which is the deadliest city in Iraq, and played for the military, I talked to the soldiers and they talked to me about what was going on and why they were still there; some of them knew why they were, but a lot of them didn’t, and they would talk to me openly about it. But when I came back to the US, I looked at everything that had gone on, and I remembered a lot of the soldiers and found out that some of them didn’t make it home." [2]

Video

The music video to "Devour" is set in a music studio for most of the video, where the band is performing the song, with various stunts being shown throughout the video. At points during the video, the rail track in which the camera rolls on in order to get some of the shots going around the band and the dancers are visible.

At the beginning of the video, it shows the band setting up their instruments with periodic shots of a flag with Shinedown's previous "S" logo that was on their Leave a Whisper album before cutting to the performance in the warehouse. These shots also join the other elements of the video during the bridge.

In addition to various camera effects (such as slow motion and certain filter effects that changes the appearance of the film), the video also periodically cuts to Brent Smith also singing the song without a band behind him in a different setting: In an ocean-blue background with several beads of water splashing around him. These shots begin to be shown once the first chorus of the song begins.

When the song ends, the band is shown from behind the drummer in slow motion, in which Barry Kerch is seen throwing his sticks into the air (they fall onto the snares), with the other band members walking away from the camera's position.

Licenses

Chart performance

Chart (2008)Peak
position
US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks 1
US Billboard Alternative Airplay 13
US Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 14

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA) [5] Gold500,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

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References

  1. ↑ "New SHINEDOWN Track 'Devour' To Hit Radio On Friday". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. 2008-05-01. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  2. ↑ "Shinedown's 'The Sound of Madness' at 15: Brent Smith Talks Iraq War, a Second Chance at Music + More". The Pit. 2023-06-22. Retrieved 2023-08-08.
  3. ↑ Hayward, Andrew. "Madden NFL 09 Soundtrack Revealed". 1up.com. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  4. ↑ http://www.rockband.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64551 Archived 2012-02-19 at the Wayback Machine An official post on the Rockband.com forums by a Harmonix employee announcing "Devour" as a July 22nd downloadable track.
  5. ↑ "American single certifications – Shinedown – Devour". Recording Industry Association of America . Retrieved July 30, 2020.
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