When I got the first Billy Talent album as a Christmas gift in ’06, or somewhere around that time, I was already well-acquainted with the majority of it. After having rediscovered the group after a chance encounter online, that’s a story for another post, I spent what I assume would have been almost a year listening to 30-second samples of the tracks on there on this website called Artistdirect.com. Back in 2004/05, YouTube wasn’t existing and sites like this were the things I had to resort to to hear just a glimpse of the music I wanted to own without having to pay for it. Songs like ‘Cut the Curtains’ and ‘Lies’ for example, I remember vividly listening to those clips, wishing I could hear the full thing. The band had the music videos for their singles on their own website. ‘Line & Sinker’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’ were able to be played in full on there too.

But when it comes to ‘Prisoners of Today’… well, I can’t remember this track ever being one of those tracks that I sought out to hear the sample for. And to this day, I’m not sure why that is. So it was really like hearing a brand new song when it came ’round for its time to be played when I popped that CD into my computer for the first instance. ‘Course now it’s like water off a duck’s back whenever it arrives on shuffle in the playlist. But it was a bit of an outlier to me for quite a while. That’s enough for the me, me, personal angle. I’m trying to get you to want to listen to these songs at the end of the day. If you’re familiar with Billy Talent’s earlier work, then the song’s not so much different from what you’d expect. Overall a pummeling punk rock performance, propelled by the driving rhythm section of Jon Gallant (bass guitar) and Aaron Solonwoniuk (drums) and heightened by the fantastic guitar work of Ian D’Sa, whose playing I’ve made sure to comment on every time I’ve written a post about a song from this album. Still amazes me to this down how he’s able to play those lines so smoothly and yet with such energy and urgency.

The track concerns being unhappy with the 9 to 5, five day of work/two days of play routine that the majority of the world has to go through for all of our lives, and acts as a reminder to use our initiative and conjure up the motivation to change our ways of living and not feel like we’re being held captive by the seemingly restrictive layout of everyday life. The two verses appear to be from the points of view of two people, or maybe it’s one in both, who have these wishes they want to fulfill but are let down by their own lack of courage or general bleak outlook on life, so much so that they just don’t bother in taking the steps to pursue what they truly want. This track I believe is in a minor key, so you know automatically that there’s sort of something sad about it, but with the furious pace that everything’s delivered, I also think it gives a feeling of ‘Well, if you feel sad, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something, ya bum.’ Ben Kowalewicz builds up into a full-throttle scream alongside D’Sa and Gallant’s backing vocals at the rushing finish, really signifying that pent-up frustration the song suggests, and it’s a moment like that which makes me wonder why it took me so long to warm up to this one.