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This is what Jeff Waters had to say about this song:
“This song is called “(I Wish I Could) Talk To The Dead”. Basically, this has a killer bass intro, I remember that one. It’s a pretty funky song, and it really is set up, musically, to throw you off, to make you completely shocked when you get to what comes next.
There’s a beautiful piano piece that happens after the funky part. So you’re thinking, okay, there’s a funky bass thing. Then it goes into some beautiful sad piano, very raw piano. And then right into Stu, our singer, singing incredibly clean. It was feel and originality in his voice. And then it hits a rocker that’s got a kind of a KISS, kind of old KISS vibe in the verses.
I think there’s also a “Touch Too Much” by AC/DC vibe in the chorus. So it has a very schizophrenic changing set of moods in the song. But lyrically, this song is actually pretty serious and meaningful to me.
It’s about somebody dying. And in this case, it sounds like maybe it’s a fictional imaginary thing, but in this case, it sounds like some kind of accident requiring an ambulance. I think we put in an ambulance effect in there too, so that you know that somebody’s in trouble. And the person has clearly been taken to the hospital and is dying.
So most of the song is narrated by the person who ends up being in a coma and, you know, just progressing the wrong way.
But their brain is still thinking, so I put myself in the mind of somebody who was maybe dying and they knew that there was machines and people and doctors around them, but they were completely unable to move or speak or whatever.
So I put myself in the mind of what would you think? And it kind of became a bit personal for me because I started thinking, well, I would have thoughts of, you know, the grim reaper, or I have no idea what would happen in the afterlife or if there even was an afterlife.
So the person was scared. The person was thinking, is there something more than just dying? Will there be something after? An afterlife? Or is this the end? And then the person, I thought in my mind when I was writing the song, I didn’t have a title, but I thought maybe I’d wish in my last moments that I could talk to the dead.
That I could speak with somebody dead to let me know, right? If I could speak with him, there must be something after. So I think that’s where, obviously, the title, “(I Wish I Could) Talk To The Dead”, was.
Because in the last dying moments of that person, that was the last thought. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, people have faith, different religious beliefs and that. But in this case, I would be thinking, at the last second, I’d be like, hey, please, somebody give me a sign there’s something else.
So obviously I, or this person, was kind of scared. So it was kind of an interesting revelation to know that I was actually a little scared.
And I think that got me through worrying about it. And I think I’m good with it now. But what else? And that’s it. The person at the end dies. And who knows what’s after, right?
Some people think they know. Maybe some do. Maybe some don’t. I really like the way Stu and Bob, the keyboardist and myself, were able to make this funky… then sad, then heavy, then melodic. And even the ending of the song is a very circus-y, kind of crazy psycho-circus thing at the end.
All into one song about fear of dying. I guess that’s probably what it is. Or questioning what happens after. And that’s it.”
