became alienated from our old selves". Tracks 1–5 "She's the Blade" was written when Pagnotta was playing his guitar in his bedroom. He was noodling with a chord progression that he thought was reminiscent of a transcending keyboard part – which he had admiration for Elvis Costello's attempts at this, namely on his track "Radio Radio". Pagnotta began singing melody lines over his chosen progression until he came up with the lyric "She's the blade and you're just paper", with the rest of the song falling into place afterwards. DeSantis visited Pagnotta and the pair worked on guitar parts, one of which eventually became a keyboard part that Rechtshaid would play on the final recording. Early versions of the song included an intro guitar riff but was scrapped in favour of Livingston's count-in. Similarly the track used to have a middle section of 12-bars that Pagnotta referred to as "bad classic rock", which was removed at MacKillop's insistence. "Crying" was written over the course of six months, with Pagnotta only having a guitar riff for the pre-chorus and main chorus for long period of time. He said the bridge section was reminiscent of U2, specifically the use of a floor tom to keep time, as heard on some U2 songs on their War (1983) album. He added a guitar solo to the track, three days prior to it being mixed. Though Pagnotta disliked it, MacKillop kept it in the final mix. Cullen is singing harmonies on the song; during the recording of this, and since he felt the ending was too sparse, Pagnotta came up with a lyric for the song's outro. "Memory" was first song finished for the album, dating at least a year prior to when they recorded it. Pagnotta wrote it about a person he met while touring in Boston, Massachusetts. During this time he had just gotten out of a relationship and was cautious about starting another. He began daydreaming about how a relationship with the person from Boston wouldn't work. He then picked up his guitar and started strumming chords, writing what would ultimately become "Memory". Pagnotta kept "Worst December" a secret for sometime, he reasoned that as the lyrics were "a bit confessional in regards to a relationship", he worried that his partner would find the lyric sheet and they'd "have to confront our issues." The music of the track was influenced by Bright