band appeared at Skate & Surf Fest in April 2003, and toured with Northstar in June, and with Moneen in July. MCA Records was absorbed by Universal Music Group subsidiary Geffen Records in mid-2003, which resulted in its staff and roster being moved to Geffen. As an effect of this, Senses Fail's debut album was shelved for eight months. Geffen Records wanted them to come up with a hit single. Nielsen said the band were not interested in writing radio-friendly material. In spite of this, they wrote "Buried a Lie" and "Rum Is for Drinking, Not for Burning" while on tour. Both songs were then recorded between October 20 and 22, 2003 at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, New York. Evetts mixed the tracks at the Snuff Factory in Helmetta, New Jersey, while Alan Douches mastered the album at West West Side Studios. Nielsen said of the recording process: "We killed ourselves over and over trying to say what we wanted, and make the record the best it could be." Composition and lyrics Musically, the album has been classed as emo, and screamo. It sees Nielsen switch from screaming to singing vocals, which were pop-influenced. All of the songs were written by the band with lyrics written by Nielsen. According to Trapp, Zablocki would come up with a riff, lead guitar part or a rough draft of a song. From there, the rest of the band would add their ideas to it and change it into a song. Nielsen said the album's title comes from a Charles Bukowski poem of the same name, in which, "[h]e was a drunk, womanizing, deadbeat lowlife. But I can really relate to his cynical view of the world". A number of songs on the album take influence from poetry and literature. Zablocki said the album's opening track "Tie Her Down" is a "sort of in the middle of the 'pop-hard' mix", and is followed by the groove-orientated arena rock song "Lady in a Blue Dress". "You're Cute When You Scream" incorporates metal guitar riffs, mixing in the sound of Iron Maiden. "Buried a Lie", another arena rock song, is the poppiest-sounding track on the album. It talks about the protagonist's deceased girlfriend in a manner akin to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The song is followed by one of the group's harder-sounding numbers, "Bite to Break Skin", which Zablocki saw as a progression from the From