Brendon Urie Was High AF When He Recorded This New Panic! Song

20 June 2018, 11:39 | Updated: 20 June 2018, 12:34

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By Woodrow Whyte

@woodrowwhyte

#BluntsForBrendon

Brendon Urie's iconic drunk history of Fall Out Boy might be our favourite video of an intoxicated person of all time but we would have DIED to be a fly on the wall when Brendon came up with the inspiration for their new single.

Panic! At The Disco are gearing up to release their sixth studio album, Pray For The Wicked. So far we've already heard the (excellent) 'Say Amen (Saturday Night)', '(Fuck A) Silver Lining' and 'High Hopes', and on Monday (June 18th) they dropped a new song called 'King of the Clouds'.

In an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, Brendon sat down to explain how the song was written and, if the song's lyrics didn't make much sense to you, then there's a good reason for that: Brendon was high AF when he wrote it.

After explaining that the song almost didn't make the cut because it was written and completed on the day that the album was due to be submitted to the record label, Brendon told the story of how it all came together at the last minute.

"I wake up at 7 and [Jake] comes over around 9am. We start working on this song and I'm like 'Dude, this is the dopest song I've ever heard. This is so cool, what the hell?!' And he was like 'Yeah, do you remember when I came over last week and you were talking with our buddy Sam about Carl Sagan and interdimensional travel and how multiverse is a real thing? Well, he wrote down all your thoughts into lyrics and we're going to sing them right now.' And I was like 'Ok, let's do this'.

He continued: "So I got really blissed out of my mind that morning - did a little wake and bake - and then I just jumped in and started singing all this crazy shit. After looking at the lyrics I asked, how did you memorised this and he was like, 'Dude, the whole time you were talking to me you were so high I don't think you realised I had my laptop out and I was writing like everything you were saying. So literally that's how this record was made. [It] was just verbal vomit.

Panic! At The Disco: King Of The Clouds (Audio)

So the moral of the story is this: to write really great songs, all you need is a working knowledge of Carl Sagan and a bag of your finest green. Thanks for the tip, Brendon!

Here's the full lyrics to 'King of the Clouds' if you want to try to make sense of them.

Heaven knows that I’m born too late for these ghosts that I chase with these dreams

I inflate painted skies in my brain

Every day I’m Carl Sagan in space to escape

This old world

This old world

Somedays I lie wide awake till the sun hits my

face and I fade elevate from the earth far

away to a place where I’m free from the weight

This old world

This old world

I don’t trust anything

Or anyone

Below the sun

I don’t feel anything

At all

I’m King of the clouds

Of the clouds

I get lifted

I get lifted

King of the clouds

Of the clouds

I get lifted

I get lifted

Some only live to die I’m alive to fly higher than

Angels in outfields inside of my mind I’m

Ascending these ladders i’m climbin’ say goodbye

This old world

This old world

And when

I fall to rise with stardust in my eyes in the

Backbone of night I’m combustible dust in the

Fire when I can’t sleep a wink I’m too tired

This old world

This old world

I don’t trust anything

Or anyone

Below the sun I don’t feel anything

At all

I’m King of the clouds

Of the clouds

I get lifted

I get lifted

King of the clouds

Of the clouds

I get lifted

I get lifted

Imagination

Take me somewhere I

Don’t know I’m lost

But I better find it

alone