“Beast and the Harlot”, the third single on City of Evil, was undoubtedly one of the breakout songs on the album, and is in fact the first song I have ever heard by Avenged Sevenfold. It talks a lot about how evil society has become and how faith has been replaced by sin. The song is about the fall of Babylon, The Great from the chapter seventeen of the Book of Revelation, from which many quotes are taken, such as "Seven headed beast, ten horns raise from his head", and "hatred strips her and leaves her naked." The Harlot referred to in the song is Great Babylon, quoted in the song, "Fallen now is Babylon The Great." On Avenged Sevenfold's All Excess DVD, the band states that M. Shadows' lyrics for this song about the fall of Babylon is comparing Babylon to Hollywood, showing many Hollywood clichés such as the young, innocent boys being corrupted and losing their souls.
Shadows and the songwriting crew drew heavily from Biblical…show more content… M.Shadows has stated numerous times that he has friends that either are currently serving or have served in the military, so he has a large respect for them. The chorus of the song is as follows: “Fight for honor, fight for your life/Pray to God that our side is right/Even though we won, I still may lose/Until I make it home to you/I see our mothers filled with tears/Grew up so fast where did those years go?/Memories won't let you cry/Unless I don't return tonight,” and is primarily about the soldier’s mentality. He is saying that some soldiers fight for the glory in war, while others simply fight to survive, but no matter what he only hoped that they were not murdering innocent people. Additionally, even if the army wins, unless he returns home alive then he will still lose. The mothers of the soldiers are scared that their children will not return home from war; instead of crying, he wants them to remember the happy memories they shared