It’s easy to draw a hard line between genres and cultures within music. People feel comfortable with these divisions because it allows them to put themselves on one side or another — aggressive or sensitive, masculine or feminine, dark or light. But the more we experience life, the more we recognize that the shades of gray are where art is often at its best. Just as God cannot exist without the Devil, so muscular groove metal can not exist without, say, queer folk-rock.
To put a point on how similar rather than different most music fans are, we’ve decided to do a lyrics quiz between two artists who, on paper, couldn’t be more different: agro metal heavyweights Five Finger Death Punch, and folk rock duo and lesbian icons Indigo Girls. Not only will this quiz point out how similar the two acts’ lyrics are, it shows just how intense some of the themes explored by a band like Indigo Girls can be. Hopefully, the result will be fans crossing genre lines to clink drinks and bond over Deep Purple.
Test your mettle below. Answers at the bottom.
Answers:
- Indigo Girls, “Ghost” (Rites of Passage, 1992)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “A Little Bit Off” (F8, 2020)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Jekyll and Hyde” (Got Your Six, 2015)
- Indigo Girls, “Dead Man’s Hill” (Swamp Ophelia, 1994)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Bloody” (And Justice for None, 2018)
- Indigo Girls, “I’ll Change” (Poseidon and the Bitter Bug, 2009)
- Indigo Girls, “Galileo” (Rites of Passage, 1992)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Wrong Side of Heaven” (The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell Vol. 1, 2013)
- Indigo Girls, “Sister” (Come On Now Social, 1999)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Far From Home” (War Is The Answer, 2009)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Can’t Heal You” (The Way of the Fist, 2007)
- Indigo Girls, “Spread the Pain Around” (One Lost Day, 2015)
- Five Finger Death Punch, “Let This Go” (The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell Vol. 2, 2013)
- Indigo Girls, “Prince of Darkness” (Indigo Girls, 1989)
- Indigo Girls, “Tether” (All That We Let In, 2004)
- FFDP, “Remember Everything” (American Capitalist, 2011)
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Words by Chris Krovatin
