Meet Your Master

Album:Year Zero

Length:4:09

Tempo:83 BPM

Versions:Meet Your Master
Meet Your Master (Instrumental)
Meet Your Master: The Faint

Live:Lights In The Sky Tour
Wave Goodbye Tour

"Meet Your Master" is the eleventh track on the 2007 release Year Zero.

Theories

In the album's alternate reality game, this song could be either from a government perspective, directed to the people, or from a resistance perspective directed to the government. The latter theory seems more apt, given the part of the lyrics quoted at Another Version Of The Truth message board by Che2. The lyrics might echo the commands of a guerrilla resistance group to a kidnapped bureaucrat (a la the kidnapping of Clive Owen's protagonist in Children of Men, or the similar scene in Thank You for Smoking).

Another theory is that these are the words of, or general feeling given by an encounter with The Presence.

Appearances

Halos

• Year Zero
• Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D

Versions

Meet Your Master

This is the original album version. It begins with complex and layered programmed drums, before a heavily glitched guitar part enters. The verse has a distorted bass guitar, and every vocal line of each verse has the first note being sung in falsetto. Bendy guitar chords enter as the verse moves along. The chorus has the distorted bass guitar up front in the mix, the glitchy guitar returns, and it ends with a multi-layered vocal on the "meet your master" line. The same multi-layered vocal approach is used on the second chorus. The breakdown features a high-pitched guitar figure with a string sample underneath. The outro finishes the same way the track began.

Meet Your Master (Instrumental)

Running Time: 4:13

This unmastered vocal-less mix was released by Trent Reznor through his remix.nin.com account.

Meet Your Master: The Faint

Running Time: 3:35

This song is on Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D. The vocals have some distortion in them and are heard over an electronic beat. It reminiscent of The Orb's remix of "The Perfect Drug". The instrumentation is slightly different, without any of the guitar elements heard in the original.

Song Credits

• Remix by The Faint

Live

"Meet Your Master" made its live debut at the Calgary, Alberta, show on July 29, 2008, and was only played twice more on the Lights In The Sky Tour. It also made rare appearances on the Wave Goodbye Tour.

Lyrics

    Bow down in position
    Against the polished steel
    This is something different
    You'll like the way this feels
    No time for asking questions
    No time for wondering
    We've heard enough from you now
    We've heard everything
    We're going to play a new game
    You'll put on this blindfold
    You'll do what we tell you
    You'll do as you're told
    Used to be the leader
    Now comes the time to serve
    Maybe we show some mercy
    Maybe you get what you deserve 
    
    Count down to the end
    Gotta make it come faster faster
    Right around the bend
    Is a coming disaster
    Count down to the end
    And we're headed there faster
    Come on down my friend
    It's time to meet your master
    
    You've left quite a mess here
    Under your stewardship
    You thought you'd figured it out but
    You'll learn your place in this
    Might take some convincing
    For you to see the truth
    There are so many things
    We've got in store for you
    
    Count down to the end
    Gotta make it come faster faster
    Right around the bend
    Is a coming disaster
    Count down to the end
    And we're headed there faster faster
    Come on down my friend
    It's time to meet your master

The following lyric is repeated to the end of the song:

    Come on down (hey, comin' round the bend)

External Links

• "Meet Your Master" (Instrumental) at archive.org

Previous track - "God Given" Track 11 from Year Zero Next track - "The Greater Good"