By Martin Popoff
"But I think Iced Earth has always been a patriotic band," continues Jon. "I mean, the first time I really let it show, was in Something Wicked with the songs '1776'. And there are going to be a few pieces of music in this that I hope make some people appreciate what we have here, that will inspire them to get interested in our history, just open people's eyes. You know, when you're born into it and you don't get a chance to go around the world, it's really easy to not notice. So yeah, the thing with the title, it's going to have double meanings and I'm hoping it's going to be one of those things that makes people think. That's usually the way people work with lyrics anyway. They'll get their own ideas out of it, their own interpretations of what the writer's saying. But with this there are going to be a couple of obvious meanings and then people can choose to use it for themselves whatever way they want. I just think it's important for us... you know, we are in a position of influence and I feel that there are a lot of kids out there, my age and younger, that just don't give a shit, that just don't appreciate and I think it's really unfortunate. And if there's any way that we can somehow inspire them to give a shit and appreciate and be interested in our history... there's going to be a song called 'Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death' that is going to be about the American Revolution, kind of an extension of '1776' and I'm going to have one that's either going to be called '1863' or 'Courage 'In Blue, Valor In Gray' or something like that, and it's going to be about the Civil War and the Battle Of Gettysburg and the consequences that played in the rest of American history and in the rest of world history. It's going to be very in-depth record."