Bat Country

Infobox Single
Name = Bat Country


Caption =
Artist = Avenged Sevenfold
from Album = City of Evil
A-side =
B-side =
Released = September 26, 2005
Format = CD
7/12" Vinyl
Recorded =
Genre = Hard rock, Heavy metal
Length = 5:13
Label = Warner Bros. Records
Writer = Avenged Sevenfold
Producer = Murdock and Avenged Sevenfold
Certification =
Last single = "Burn It Down"
(2005)
This single = "'Bat Country"
(2005)
Next single = "Beast and the Harlot"
(2006)
Misc = "Bat Country" is a single by the American hard rock band Avenged Sevenfold from their 2005 album, "City of Evil". The song's main influence comes from Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and the title itself also comes from a line from the book in which Raoul Duke, the alter-ego pseudonym of Thompson himself, is on his way to Las Vegas while being affected by various drugs, and thus hallucinates, seeing huge bats and manta rays in the sky. With this, he screams to his companion, Dr. Gonzo, "We can't stop here. This is bat country."

The song has been used in several video games including EA Sports' "NHL 06", "Madden NFL 06", "SSX On Tour" and "Saints Row 2". It also had a short cameo in "Big Momma's House 2." The song is on the soundtrack of the extreme mountain bike film "New World Disorder 7: Flying High Again".

The song appears on the FOX tv show "Bones".

Avenged Sevenfold won 'Best New Artist' at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards for "Bat Country".

The following quote is frequently referred to throughout the song and is shown at the beginning of the music video.

"He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man." - Dr. Johnson

Formats and track listings

"Single"
#Bat Country
#Beast & The Harlot (Live From The Warped Tour)
#Bat Country (Video)

Music video

The video for this song shows various symbolic images and references to the above-mentioned Thompson book. The song centers around the band performing in a hotel room, surrounded by exotic dancers. There are also cuts to a scene in which the band is driving down a barren highway in a bat-winged Cadillac convertible, surrounded by a cloud of bats (who are being swatted by Zacky and The Rev). During the "soft" section, the band appears at a strip club, surrounded by snake-tongued strippers. Also, it's implied that the video is partially a hallucinaton.

If you watch closely, the words on M. Shadows shirt appear to change between "Why Disneyland" and "If you have Amsterdam." The shirt actually says "Why Disneyland if you have Amsterdam?" at one point in the song. It changes back afterward. During Synyster Gates' and Zacky Vengeance's guitar solo/duo the bats that fly into the sky are sometimes not there. The regular people sometimes appear to have a disfigured face. During this video's commentary by Avenged Sevenfold on their "All Excess" DVD the band says that the bats hallucination was actually due to a lack of funds though if they were serious or joking isn't said.

The music video, which was filmed around Las Vegas, still receives considerable airplay on many channels. As Shadows says, the band members live close to Las Vegas. Synyster Gates commented [cite web
url = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi4QKUC1ACI
title = Avenged Sevenfold on Daily Download| publisher = Youtube
date = 2007-01-31
accessdate = 2007-01-31] at 2:47, 'You put all of us in the car, and that's basically what you have.'

Chart positions

References

External links

* [http://www.lyricinterpretations.com/lookat.php/bands/Avenged-Sevenfold/be6874271fdf95c Bat Country at lyricinterpretations]