Reduced To Teeth Lyrics

"Reduced To Teeth" is the eighth track featured on the 2005 album 'Say Hello to Sunshine,' by the American post hardcore band Finch. The song provides a stark demonstration of the change in sound the album as a whole contains, compared to earlier releases by the band. While the instrumental side is impressively melodic and aggressive at the same time, the true depth of the song is contained in the lyrics and the way in which they are delivered. Lead singer Nate Barcalow takes the listener through pretty much his full range of vocal skills, swinging from the harsh screams that he has been become so accomplished at to the downright sincere and beautiful notes. The song describes an individual of medical expertise (in all likeliness a doctor) who assists his pain stricken wife to commit suicide. We are taken through the grief of the individual who struggles to watch as his wife lives a life of agony and suffering, feeling helpless and at odds with his conscience. He tries to reason with himself that any form of life is preferred to no life at all, trying to ignore the option of euthanasia. The title of the song comes from the fact that the man's judgement is clouded by his feelings of love for his wife, i.e. that his instincts and decision making skills as a medical expert are reduced to grinding his teeth in frustration. Eventually he takes it upon himself to end her pain and so temporarily finds personal relief through this. Finding himself accused of murdering her, the lyrics vent the man's frustration and bitterness towards people unable to see the difference between murder and compassion. He comtemplates the damage he may in fact have done to his own soul as he starts doubt whether he has done the right thing after all, as panic sweeps through him. Implications are that he is convicted and he is accused of using his position as a doctor to kill her in cold blood for some motive of his own such as a medical experiment. By ending his wife's pain he has tried to bring her and himself peace but now has unleashed all hell upon himself, mirrored by the harrowing aggressive vocals which end the track.