My Chemical Romance - You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us in Prison
This is a winter song. I listened to this album one long winter many years ago. I listened to it on repeat not because the words meant anything to me but simply because I enjoyed it. I listened to it so much that eventually it became a living, breathing thing, an entity that hovered over me while I worked my way out of a very dark space.
I thought this CD would go in a place with others before it, filed somewhere under “painful memories” and left to die coated in dust on a forgotten shelf in the garage. But it doesn’t remind me so much of those painful days and nights in a black hole as it does fighting to claw my way out of that hole and that’s a good thing. On the tale end of my months of obsession with Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge are clusters of bright spots, moments when I could see the light at the end and feel hopeful about everything that light promised. The entity that was this album was more like a companion on a journey of self-discovery than a spectre looming above me.
So it’s ok when a song from this album randomly pops up on shuffle. There’s that first, small pang of “Oh god, remember…” but that dissipates quickly when I remember how I felt when my obsession with Sweet Revenge moved on to something else; it became just an album to enjoy, just as my life was becoming a thing to enjoy as well.
Besides all that, this is a pretty good song.
My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words
For themesong, a music meme. See here for details. The theme for September 1st (and here’s the calendar of themes) was tenacity . I’m just catching up on some of the themes I missed this week.
Before I talk about tenacity, let me just say that I love this album and I also love Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and I won’t listen to your “emo eyeliner wearing hot topic blah blah blah” bullshit because The Black Parade is some fantastic song writing and storytelling. It’s part Queen, part Broadway musical and all awesome. I’ll fight you on that. I will.
So one day I was driving around running errands and this song came on and it was just… a moment. You know what I mean? One of those small moments when you feel something click and you don’t know if that click will last or if it’s just a fleeting thing but for a few seconds it’s like you’re a giant clock and all the gears have finally fit into place and they just start moving and you start tick tick ticking like you just kicked into life. It’s a brief epiphany and while the exultation of the moment won’t always stay with you, the memory of it will. That little moment when it all came together, when you said, I’m alive. I’m good. I got this.
‘Cause I see you lying next to me
With words I thought I’d never speak
Awake and unafraid
Asleep or dead
I am not afraid to keep on living
I am not afraid to walk this world alone
(Or dead)
Honey if you stay, I’ll be forgiven
Nothing you can say can stop me going home
And yea, I know what the song is about but what a song is about and how it makes you feel in a moment are sometimes two different things.
Besides:
In an interview with The New York Times, singer Gerard Way was quoted as saying, “At first I thought [the patient died], but the more I think about it, the more I think he’s not dead. Maybe this is all in his head. Maybe he can fight. Now I think he has a choice to live.” The song’s meaning is generally open to interpretation, as said before, because its lyrics never really tell one way or the other whether the patient dies. Ray Toro (the lead guitarist) said this is his favorite song on the album because it leaves you with a little hope.
My Chemical Romance - Thank You for the Venom
Say what you will about them (or me) but Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is one of my favorite albums ever.
I know you think it’s radio-friendly angsty pop music aimed at 14 year old girls who like to draw scars on themselves with Sharpies and write MySpace odes to unrequited crushes, but this album is good. It’s lyrically brilliant and musically diverse. Get past the whole I’m Not Ok thing and dig into the rest of it. By the third song you’ll have forgotten that this band previously made you feel like Hot Topic barfed up its contents into your radio.
