Lyrical Concepts
Horse the Band's lyrics were usually metaphors for vocalist Nathan Winneke's life, often with abstract pop culture reference titles. Winneke has referred to his style on multiple occasions as "Lynchian," in reference to his favorite film director, David Lynch and his obtuse narrative style.
The band jokingly labeled themselves "Nintendocore" very early on in their career in reference to the synth sound they had adopted. Some video game characters that are metaphorically referred to include Cut Man from Mega Man, although the song is spelled "Cutsman" because the song was about a childhood friend Winneke grew up with and that was how they had said the character's name in youth; "Birdo," one of the bosses from the NES game Super Mario Bros. 2, in the song "Birdo" which was actually about Winneke's distaste for eggs and traumatic experiences with his stepfather early in his life; and the rabbit-like nemesis from The Legend of Zelda in the song "Pol's Voice" which is about Winneke's early loathing of the sound of his own voice. Similarly, the song "A Million Exploding Suns" refers to the Marvel Comics character Sentry, a schizophrenic and agoraphobic hero with this abundance of power, pertaining to Winneke's double life as a musician and as a video rental clerk.
2007's A Natural Death featured significant lyrical and musical evolution into the concepts of nature and mortality while moving slightly away from the Nintendo metaphors. The song "Murder" is inspired by the miniseries Lonesome Dove, in which a Native American named Blue Duck stalks and kills white settlers on the plains. "Hyperborea" as a reference to Robert E. Howard's original "Conan" pulp fantasy stories from the 30s, and "The Red Tornado," a DC comics character from the company of which Winneke is such an open enthusiast.
In Horse's Earth Tour saga, Winneke is quoted as saying that nothing the band does is for "funny," and he would never leave his family for three months for "funny" or "Nintendocore."
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