Bat Country
by Avenged Sevenfold
- 123
- BPM
- C major
- Key
- 8B
- Camelot
- 55
- Danceability
- 0
- Acousticness
Avenged Sevenfold formed in Huntington Beach, California, in 1999. By the time of City of Evil, its third album and first on a major label, it had moved from a metalcore sound to a more traditional heavy metal style. "Bat Country" came out in August 2005 as the album's second single.
The title is a direct quote from Hunter S. Thompson's 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In the book, Raoul Duke is on his way to Las Vegas under the effect of various drugs. He hallucinates huge bats and manta rays in the sky and tells Dr. Gonzo, "We can't stop here. This is bat country." The Samuel Johnson line that opens the novel, about the man who makes a beast of himself, appears twice in the song and at the start of the video. The final lyric comes from the words spoken about Dr. Gonzo at the end of the film adaptation.
The video won Best New Artist in a Video at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. The single was certified platinum by the RIAA and silver by the BPI. In December 2008 it peaked at number 9 on the UK Rock Chart. It later appeared in Madden NFL 06, Saints Row 2, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and the TV show Bones.
Bat Country runs at 123 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.95 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 488 ms. It is in C major, Camelot 8B, which shares its notes with A minor and mixes cleanly with F major and G major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.