#troubles coming

[captnotter17]

Mike Kerr

[punkrock-bottom]

Trouble's coming but I still don't know when

That's the voice that I can hear in my head

I hear it over and over again

[unforecasted-st0rm]

[k0nstantly-tragic]

That new royal blood track got me like

[juhnkit]

Motivational Music in the Morning ... Royal Blood, Troubles Coming (Official Music Video) ... from the Album: Typhoons (2021)

#MMitM1

What the Song is About: Despite the upbeat, danceable production, the lyrics are intensely dark and personal. The dancey musical backdrop juxtaposes Kerr’s lyrics about the dark clouds that sometimes overwhelm him: “I let my demons take hold and choke on me / Can’t fill these holes that I’m digging / Can’t stop my heart when it’s sinking.” Kerr explained: “‘Trouble’s Coming’ is a feeling, and it’s a feeling that I know well. It’s more about these recurring mental nightmares that I’ve had. I felt more comfortable being that honest, that open and that vulnerable, because the backdrop was so upbeat. The musical backdrop juxtaposes what I’m saying. It felt quite weird at first, but that actually makes it more powerful.” The crucial context: while touring to support their second album How Did We Get So Dark? Kerr struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction, and he decided to become sober in early 2019. Typhoons as a whole was written from the other side of that — a man now sober, looking back at the wreckage his mind had become and processing it through music. The lyrics — cracked mirrors, signs of psychosis, demons choking him, holes he can’t fill — are not metaphors. They’re Kerr’s honest account of what addiction and mental illness actually felt like from the inside.

Sync Placements: The song was used in the soundtracks for Dirt 5, FIFA 21, NHL 21, Forza Horizon 5, The Crew Motorfest, and NASCAR 21: Ignition, as well as the Netflix series Locke & Key and The Good Doctor. Since 2024 it has been used on Gladiators as the entrance theme for Viper.

————— Theological Viewpoints —————

— “Trouble’s Coming” as Prophetic Dread: The song’s central phrase — heard “over and over again” in the narrator’s head — maps closely onto the prophetic tradition of foreboding. Biblical prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of coming disaster they could perceive before others could see it and were consumed by that knowledge. Kerr’s “trouble’s coming but I still don’t know when” is exactly this experience — the torment of sensing catastrophe without being able to name or prevent it. This is not paranoia; it is a form of spiritual sensitivity gone dark.

— “I let my demons take hold and choke on me”: This is remarkably close to the New Testament’s language of demonic possession and spiritual bondage — not as superstition but as a framework for the experience of addiction. In Romans 7, Paul describes being enslaved to a force within himself he cannot overcome: “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing.” Kerr’s admission that he would stop if he could is exactly Paul’s cry — not rebellion but helplessness. That distinction is theologically important. It is the cry of someone who needs rescue, not punishment.

— The Mirror and Psychosis: “In my reflection I see signs of psychosis / I try to pay them no attention” connects to the theological concept of self-knowledge as dangerous and necessary. The mirror in Scripture is a recurring image — James 1:23 describes a man who looks in a mirror, sees himself, and immediately forgets what he looks like. Kerr cannot forget. He sees and is horrified by what he sees. The contemplative tradition (John of the Cross, Thomas Merton) would call this the beginning of genuine self-knowledge — painful, disorienting, but necessary for transformation.

— Disco Beats and the Dark Night: The most theologically striking thing about the song is its sonic dissonance — crushing inner darkness delivered over euphoric, danceable production. This mirrors what St. John of the Cross called the Dark Night of the Soul, where the outward life may appear normal or even joyful while the inner life is in total desolation. Kerr has essentially composed a Dark Night of the Soul set to disco — the outside world keeps dancing while inside, the narrator is drowning.

— Sobriety as Resurrection: Knowing that Kerr wrote Typhoons from the other side of addiction gives the song additional theological weight. It becomes a document of a man descending into death and — through the act of writing honestly about it — beginning to ascend. The whole album functions as a kind of resurrection narrative: you cannot have Typhoons without first having had the storm.

#RoyalBlood #TroublesComing #Typhoons #2021

[juhnkit]

Motivational Music in the Morning ... Royal Blood, Troubles Coming (Official Audio Track) ... from the Album: Typhoons (2020) #MMitM1 #RoyalBlood #Typhoons #TroublesComing

[juhnkit]

Motivational Music in the Morning ... #RoyalBlood, #TroublesComing ... #Typhoons [Official Audio] (2020) #MMitM1

[k0nstantly-tragic]

Royal Blood's "Trouble's Coming" is in episode 6 of Dexter New Blood 🙌