In retrospect I think we got a couple of things wrong with the Blood, Sweat and Tears single. At the time we weren't entirely planning to finish things off with Intermission, so we thought this might be the last single from the album - otherwise we might have put the Golden Wheel remix on the EP, where it would have been a more natural fit. And we only had one b-side ready at the time, and unfortunately I'm not sure Centuries Later is the best song we've ever written.
It's pretty old actually - the earliest demos date back to early 2005, which is why the lyrics have a slightly more preachy Empires / Dusk feel - and the chord sequence is borrowed from House of Cards, but played backwards. Over eight years it underwent numerous rewrites and lost the raw octave bassline with which it had started life, and finally it turned up as the only b-side on the fourth Transmission single in 2013.
The lyrics:
We should be proud of what we’ve achieved
We’ve satisfied our every need
As time goes by, we always attack
Blow up the past and never look back
Many years of progress
But look at what we've done
Centuries later, still nothing has changed
Our progress is driven by our own decay
Centuries later, the same people reign
So many lives wasted, building our remains
Look at the past, and see what has been
We're driven by our anger and greed
Should we be proud with so many dead
Or look behind for each step ahead?
Many ways to repress
We chose the loaded gun
Centuries later, still nothing has changed
Our progress is driven by our own decay
Centuries later, the same people reign
So many lives wasted, building our remains
Many roads to success
And still we stumble on
Centuries later, still nothing has changed
Our progress is driven by our own decay
Centuries later, the same people reign
So many lives wasted, building our remains
Centuries later, still nothing has changed
Our progress is driven by our own decay
Centuries later, the same people reign
So many lives wasted, building our remains
(R. Martin / S. Martin)
