For inspiration, Craig Mabbitt said that he drew experiences from many things, stating, "I wanted to write about every emotion that you can get from life, everything that kind of happens, every kind of story I've heard that really upset me." The track "Lost in Darkness" tells the story about one of Mabbitt's friends who was dragged out of her home and raped at gunpoint. Mabbitt stated that, "was screaming for help and nobody helped her at all. Everybody just turned the other cheek. That was something that really struck me, and I see that happening a lot, just people not wanting to lend a helping hand to people when somebody is hurting... That's definitely where I went with that song." The second track, "Massacre", is about Mabbitt's past addictions and the things he did to overcome them. The ballad track "World Around Me" takes a broader view and was written about life in general. "[World Around Me is about relationships with my ex and my child, everything accumulated into one song." The closing track, "The Aftermath (G3)", is the third song under the title of "The Guillotine" for Escape the Fate. The original Guillotine was sung by Ronnie Radke for "Dying Is Your Latest Fashion" and was about the video game series "Halo". When Mabbitt joined, a song entitled "This War Is Ours (The Guillotine Part II)" was included on "This War Is Ours" and was also about "Halo". However, the second "Guillotine" was written as well to relate to real-life soldiers in battle. For the self-titled album, Mabbitt wrote a third "Guillotine" track but did not want to base it off of "Halo" again. Instead, he wrote a more personal track about his father who was in the military when Mabbitt was a child. " chorus, 'Now I'm coming home,' is an ode to my Dad and an ode to all the soldiers out there who are fighting a war for us and waiting to come home to their families." As a whole, Mabbitt feels that, "every track has a completely different underlying story to it."