Wait and Bleed

"Wait and Bleed" is a song by American heavy metal band Slipknot. Released as the band's debut single off their 1999 self-titled debut album. After being remixed to replace the screamed vocals in the verses with more melodic singing, it was released as the lead single from the album in July 1999, and peaked at number 34 on the American Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in February 2000. It remains one of the band's signature songs. Joey Jordison recalled in an interview with Kerrang!: "I wrote the music for 'Wait and Bleed' on my own... I showed it to the guys at rehearsal, and then Corey wrote some lyrics really fast in our practice space... He took us to a new level immediately." "The song's about that switch in your head that can go at any moment," noted Corey Taylor. "You go from being a civilized human being to someone who can commit terrible acts. I've always been fascinated by the fact we represent ourselves as civilized when, at any moment, we can become animals." "Wait and Bleed" earned Slipknot a first Grammy nomination in 2001 for Best Metal Performance, though it lost to Deftones' "Elite". The song won the Best Single award at the 2000 Kerrang! Awards. The song enjoyed a degree of commercial success, reaching number 34 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 27 in the UK Singles Chart. It was also ranked number 36 on VH1's "40 Greatest Metal Songs" list. In 2020, Kerrang and Louder Sound ranked the song number four and number one, respectively, on their lists of the greatest Slipknot songs. This track, along with "Left Behind", "Pulse of the Maggots", and "Snuff", were released as downloadable songs in the Rock Band series. A remix version of "Wait and Bleed" by Terry Date was featured on the soundtrack for Scream 3. "It was just a basic song. We didn't know it was going to be that popular. The funny thing is the record label, especially new guys at the record label, were coming around when we started getting big, and they're like, 'Oh, the next record, you can write, like, three Wait And Bleeds.