The Blackwater Fever are an Australian blues guitar-drums band, formed in B… Read Full Bio ↴The Blackwater Fever are an Australian blues guitar-drums band, formed in Brisbane, Queensland in 2005. They were awarded Best Blues & Roots Act at the 2006 Sunshine Coast Music Festival. They issued their debut five-track extended play, Abused Blues, in January 2006 by the founding duo of Shane Hicks on vocals and guitar; and Rick DeMarco on drums.[1] The tracks had been recorded live-in-the-studio at OPM Studios, Brisbane. Hicks and DeMarco co-wrote "Blackwater", which provided the band's name, Hicks later recalled "[we were] brain storming for a band name we were having a hell of a time trying to come up with something. One of the first guitar/drums songs we wrote together was called ‘Blackwater’ and it’s about people catching a fever from drinking tainted water. Put all that together and you have our band name! We found out later that it was a term for severe malaria…. And because we were going for a dark swampy bluesy sound, we thought…. Perfect!"
By 2008 The Blackwater Fever had gained national radio exposure from youth radio station Triple J, on the Home & Hosed (October) and Roots 'n' All (November) segments,and from that station's Unearthed competition for new unsigned bands. In November 2008 they released their debut studio album, Sweet Misery, where DeMarco had been replaced by Andrew Walter on drums.

By late 2010 the line-up was a trio with Hicks and Walter joined by Jed A. Walters on bass guitar and keyboards. However their second album, In Stereo (June 2011), had been recorded before Walters had joined, "[Jed] didn't contribute to this album but he'll definitely be making a big contribution to the next one." Their third album, The Depths, appeared in March 2013 Luke Saunders of Reverb Street Press compared it with the previous two albums "[its] another intriguing step forward following the solid foundations the band laid on their dark and gritty debut, Sweet Misery (2009) and its more refined, equally accomplished follow-up, In Stereo (2011).

When The Night Comes
The Blackwater Fever Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

The sun is falling
like a burning zeppelin
tall buildings crash their shadows down
upon the good city people

The wind is howling
the new age is calling out
it rattles through our bones like a locomotive

sending out a warning

Overall Meaning

to stay inside

The lyrics of The Blackwater Fever's "When The Night Comes" paints a vivid picture of an approaching night filled with ominous and threatening energy. The song employs powerful imagery to create a foreboding atmosphere that can be felt even without the musical accompaniment. The opening line, "The sun is falling like a burning zeppelin," metaphorically signifies the end of a time of peace, while the following line, "tall buildings crash their shadows down upon the good city people," depicts the dilapidation that the city is falling into.

The next two lines, "The wind is howling, the new age is calling out," suggest that some sort of apocalyptic change is coming, and the "new age" being referenced could be one in which darkness and evil will reign. The third and fourth lines "it rattles through our bones like a locomotive, sending out a warning to stay inside" further intensify the feeling of danger and the need to take refuge.

Overall, The Blackwater Fever's "When The Night Comes" is a powerful commentary on the human condition, and how we respond to our inner demons when night falls.

Line by Line Meaning

The sun is falling
The sunset is occurring

like a burning zeppelin
The sun is descending with the intensity of a fiery airship

tall buildings crash their shadows down
The shadows cast by tall buildings envelop the city people

upon the good city people
The innocent people of the city are affected

The wind is howling
Winds are blowing with great force

the new age is calling out
A new era is emerging

it rattles through our bones like a locomotive
Its effect is so strong that it feels like a train running through our bodies

sending out a warning
It is a sign of caution for those who are willing to listen

Contributed by Aiden P. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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