“The Stone” by Ashes Divide

"The Stone" was the song that introduced Ashes Divide, the first single from their 2008 debut album Keep Telling Myself It's Alright, but its roots go deeper. Billy Howerdel originally composed the piece it grew from for A Perfect Circle, and an instrumental called "Army", which shares plenty of its DNA, came out of the demo sessions that also turned up songs for that band's first album, Mer de Noms. A Perfect Circle never released it, so Howerdel kept reshaping it for years.

With the verses mostly written and the chorus stumping him, he called in Concrete Blonde's Johnette Napolitano, who contributed a few lines there and lent it a maternal touch. It's a brooding tug-of-war about aching to shield the people you love while feeling unworthy of that same protection yourself. Island released it, and the video followed in March.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.