Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) "Thick And Thin"

[Reprinted as written by Avenged Sevenfold]

I don't want to know.
And I don't want to see you in this place.
Your kind is a disgrace as I spit in your face.
And I don't want to hear anymore.
A friend is f****d with while he's having fun on the dance floor.
Get the f**k out of here now.
Come on you kids, stand your ground.
This is your show, it s your family.
All of my friends there for me.
There's four-hundred more of us then them.
So kick them out.
Keep it positive.
Keep it real. Keep it true.
Together with my friends.
I'll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my brothers, I ll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my family.
I'll be there for you.

As in several of his works, the poet brings in two voices. The first voice is all approbation, the classic pointy-finger. Suddenly, mid-sentence, the other voice takes over, angry, defiant, while he's having fun on the dance floor

On the surface level, this song pits youthful excess against the stereotype of disapproving parents. 400 dancers with their loud music can drown and kick out those finger pointers. Poignantly, however, the disapproving voice has the last say when this poem is sung.

On a deeper level, the poet has shifted allegiance from his genetic family to his spiritual family. Something has brought these 400 together that makes them brothers who are willing to go through thick and thin together, to be there for each other. As the ancient wisdom literature says,

...there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

So it truly is, on the spiritual plane. Some people will say that blood runs thicker than water, and there's certainly truth to that. Yet it is even truer to say that Spirit runs deeper than blood. Those who are spiritually united with each other know the difference.

This is why Jesus offered His life, represented in His poured out blood, so that by rising again from the dead He could join together those who love Him, with His Spirit.

In Jesus' day there were the pointy finger disapprovers, professional religious types, promoting their institutions and hating Jesus for refusing to conform to their rules. They were the few and the powerful, but Jesus sang to the ones who followed Him

This is to my brothers, I ll be there for you.
Through the problems thick and thin and problems we'll fight through.
This is to my family.
I'll be there for you

[the main theme in this song is about the importance of friendship]

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