Dah dah dah-dah, dah dah dah-dah, Emo's world!
And in exactly what shade of black would you like that prom dress?
“The broken, the beaten, and the damned”—those poor souls aren’t this song’s true audience*: the audience who swallows this swill usually comes from middle-class (mostly non-black) homes, as they often see themselves as disaffected, disinterested, disappointed, and about any other dis you want to toss in (including Dante’s Dis, the city inhabiting the lower levels of hell in The Divine Comedy, where many parents and teachers assume these disses live now or will live one day). I’m not saying these disses, these youngsters, these Emos (but not the band, oh goodness no--as lead singer and primary songwriter Gerard Way has angrily and loudly proclaimed, MCR is not emo), aren’t to be pitied, shouldn’t have our empathy or sympathy: no, not at all. These teenagers are misfits not because they’re the non-conformists they see themselves as being (because when a subnation of teens all dress in the same color and all sport the same tats and the same piercings in the same placings, we’re talking about large-scale conformity); they’re misfits because that’s how they perceive themselves, and that’s therefore how they’re treated: I perceive as I am, therefore I am (Descartes was Emo, you know, and he reigned in Dis).
These kids of ours are non-violent, they live for their music, they wear their misery (affected or not) on their ripped sleeves, and doggonit, they need a movement to make America aware that their time has come. Their apathy needs be celebrated. The gay have had their anthem. The hip-hop kids have had theirs. Now, the Goths need theirs, and My Chemical Romance have provided them with one. Go Goth! From the pitiful treacle of the almost spoken-word introductory narrative, to the Green-Day-like chopped cords of the verses, to the lyrics whose message (I don’t care, but I’ll keep fighting the good fight because I don’t care) is wonderfully contradictory, to the hair-metal high of the vocals, to the closing mantra, shouted/chanted to the ringing Brian May-influenced guitar and militaristic, Sousa snare taps, this song is the epitome of what most of us (and most of them) think of as the EmoGoth movement (I was considering calling them GothEmos, but EmoGoth has the ring of Lovecraft to it, and I think that's quite fitting)--except for the fact that the song, and this explication of it, completely ignore the various reasons behind the true pain our teenagers have to work through every day.
This is their “We Are the Champions," their "Hip Hop Hooray"—their anthem (though, as the singer states, the anthem won’t explain it: it’s an EmoGoth thing; you wouldn’t understand). Welcome to the Black Parade, ladies and gentlemen; I hope you’ll stay till the end; we'll be here till Thursday.
Okay, enough. Why is this song here? Often, despite my best efforts to the contrary, despite how hard I fight it, my inner emo holds a soft spot for songs that try so hard to stand up for people who don't usually stand up for themselves...and because the singer—for all his histrionics—has true talent, and because in midst of the bombast (Jim Steinmann would be so proud), I detect a smattering of surf drumming throughout, and I'll take my surf drumming wherever I can find it, and I'll carry on. You should, too.
*Notes - I do, however, know some of the broken, beaten, and the damned for whom this music and this lifestlye are more than a curious affectation. And for these people, this music is important; it is a reminder, a reassurance, that they matter, and sometimes this type of affirmation is the only they get. For that reason, above all other snide ones I listed above, popular music can be as essential as any other element in life. Music matters. Even if you don't like it.
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