BackStory: The Fervor’s “Bent Around A Dying Dream”

In this week’s BackStory installment, Ben Felker of The Fervor shares the story behind the band’s song, “Bent Around A Dying Dream.”

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I started writing this song on a day when one of my cats died. It began with me just looking for something ugly and desperate sounding to play on the guitar. Something that would suit my mood. From that I found the little instrumental refrain that we do. I came away that night with that riff and and the chorus. None of it is really about my cat, though I must say I wasn’t really on top of the world that night.

The verses of this song were written almost entirely by Natalie. Though I can’t speak for her, I can say that we were both feeling the crunch of trying to make it in rock and roll. This was about two years ago, and we’d both recently been laid off from our day jobs. We’d been doing a lot to make the band really work and this essentially had cut off our financing. Trying to tour and pay the bills had been tough as it was and this kind of gave us that sense that we were getting right up to the edge of something. In general the song is about that. Trying to reconcile yourself to the path you love in the face of reality.

Many of the lyrics in the verses are taken right from what was going on around us in Louisville at the time. Ice storms had knocked out much of the power grid for upwards of a week. Around the neighborhood a suspicious amount of buildings really had burned to the ground. Was it time to cash it all in for the insurance money? This song is just us in that in between moment. That moment when you would get out if your heart would let you.


Bent Around A Dying Dream by The Fervor


My old friends, I hardly remember them

For so long I’ve been living in this moment

Buildings keep burning down

And the power goes out all across town

Was this something you could see

Or could you not see a thing

Bent around a dying dream

Where’s the thing you meant to be

Bent around a dying dream

Wrapped around the thing you need

Was this something you could see

I cannot see a thing a thing

Living like the days aren’t catching up to us

While everything around you has budded and bloomed

Waiting on a plan to come together

For the answers to be revealed

Was this something you could see

Or could you not see a thing

Bent around a dying dream

Where’s the thing you meant to be

Bent around a dying dream

Wrapped around the thing you need

Was this something you could see

I cannot see a thing