In 1928 Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw invented the iron lung — a large metal capsule attached to vacuums meant to suck in and release air, used for people who’s torso muscles were paralyzed by Polio to enable them to breathe. Being a patient in an iron lung meant existence in captivity, but until the invention of the polio vaccine in 1955 it saved thousands of lives. Nowadays the iron lung is a curiosity of the past — but epidemics, let alone pandemics, are still in fresh memory, and particularly the economic and social lockdowns of Melbourne. The song itself describes someone paralyzed in an iron lung, comparing it to a jail as well as purgatory. Despite this, the patient tries to remain sane. Over its runtime, “Iron Lung” builds on itself and leads to some of the highest peaks found on Ice, Death…. Out of all of the songs on the album, “Iron Lung” is by far its most popular with its music video boasting two million views in only a year, making it one of Gizzard’s most famous songs alongside the likes of “Gamma Knife” and “The River.” Live performances have ignited audiences since its debut. “Iron Lung” is no doubt a highlight of the band’s five album run in 2022, but it has grown to embody the band as a whole, becoming a classic seemingly overnight.
Like all songs on Ice, Death… “Iron Lung” was written as a group with a specific mode in mind. This song in particular uses the Aeolian scale. One of the most interesting lyrics in the song is “it’s a different kind of cuttlefish.” According to an interview with ABC News Australia the line was meant to be “it’s a different kettle of fish” but Ambrose couldn’t remember the exact quote, instead opting for this vague yet iconic line instead. He said of his vocals on the track’s outbursts, “that was me trying to be like Bon Scott or something. That riff is mega. I think I just got to it before Stu could and screamed and squealed.” The lyrics for “Iron Lung” were written by Stu, Ambrose, Cook and Lucas while the music itself was written and performed by Stu (guitar/piano/bass/vocals/organ/clavinet/flute), Ambrose (keyboards/saxophone/percussion/vocals), Cavs (drums), Joey (bass/guitar/Farfisa) and Cook (guitar/keyboards).
Fans knew of “Iron Lung” in some form since the spring of 2022. While the band was touring America they would tease and quote the song during performances of “Slow Jam 1” and “Her And I (Slow Jam 2)”, leading many fans to ask what these new lyrics were about. A Reddit user named u/SLAAAAYER had grabbed a full lyric sheet after their show on 2022-04-28, which gave fans the first glance at the name. For their 2022 Reddit AMA the band used an account u/metalliccocoon, taking its name from the song’s lyrics. In this AMA fans were given a few bits of info: that “Iron Lung” was for a new album and that the song had already been recorded — though Lucas would jokingly respond to a comment acting like he didn’t know what the fans were talking about. The song would make a live debut on 2022-09-30 at the Desert Daze Festival in Perris and would be played four other times before the release of Ice, Death… on October 7th, 2022.
The song was later released as downloadable content for the video game Paradiddle.
On September 21st, 2022, the band teased the song’s music video with a short clip on their social media with the caption “It’s a different kind of cuttlefish.” Days later on the 26th, another clip was uploaded with the caption “When that cuttlefish hits dif — 4 Oct.” The music video for “Iron Lung” was directed and produced by SPOD (Brent Griffin), the band’s first collaboration with the Sydney-based recording artist and producer. Utilizing generative AI, the video is a long sequence of strange images that seamlessly transition into each other.
In a press release for the song, SPOD said the video was an experiment that took a lot of time to get down. “When I heard this track, I had just started delving into fully animated AI videos and thought, what a good opportunity to use something I barely understand mixed with my love of effects from the dawn of digital video. So I poured myself into a cyber spiral for a couple of months and this is the result. I love how the song seems like endless ascending and descending cycles culminating in these dramatic explosions and lifts, so it felt like a perfect fit to dive into a nine-minute descent to hell and back. Unfortunately I still dream that I’m spiraling into the eternal abyss and I’m not sure I exist anymore.” Over on a r/KGATLW thread discussing the video, SPOD further detailed the creative process behind it. “...it was 2 months of trial and error, and using a bunch of different techniques alongside the newest diffusion programs as they rolled out. It was all mapped out frame by frame to work with the music, trying see [sic] if I could illustrate the feeling of the music through the video. At times it feels like driving a bus from the backseat, but is [sic] amazing when it all comes together. The hardest thing is steering it away from the generic look that AI art can get.” He also mentioned that Jason Galea had given him references to build off of.
Following the song’s debut “Iron Lung” became an instant classic for the band’s live shows. While some shows had the song appear as a standalone track, such as 2022-12-10, others saw it as a destination coming out of a jam, like on 2022-10-11 where the song appeared after “Mr. Beat.” After being a constant for the end of 2022, it would remain in heavy rotation for 2023 while being incorporated in jams more often, either being the start of a jam (2023-06-21) or once again being an ending (2023-03-15). While the song would often be paired with “Hypertension,” it would continue to be played on its own as well, such as on 2023-05-28, making the song hard to pin down to just one thing. During their acoustic show at the Brighton Dome on 2024-05-31, the song appeared as the show’s opener, marking the debut of the acoustic “Iron Lung.” Live performances of the song are typically about the same length of the studio version though some reach around twelve minutes in length (like on 2023-06-07).