| Twenty One Pilots – Slowtown Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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The lines "I put my socks on my feet / Just so that my soul won't / Fall through my toes / And I walk through my door / Just so I don't Fall through the floor" I can really identify with anxiety, and obsessive overthinking and seeking out patterns as a way to cope, to a point where it becomes toxic. Your brain begins to associate - in this song's case - putting on socks to keep yourself alive; irrational, but a thought process no doubt a complete possibility in the mind of somebody suffering from anxiety. The idea of repeated actions as a means of coping with life and not panicking, for me, is what these few lines mean. They also link to Fairly Local, in the lines "I truly don't have a chance Tomorrow I'll keep a beat / And repeat yesterday's dance ... Ii truly do have a chance / Tomorrow I’ll switch the beat / to avoid yesterday’s dance". The idea of breaking a cycle you get stuck in. |
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| My Chemical Romance – I Never Told You What I Do For a Living Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Following the album concept: this is the closing to a story. “just get in line, and I'll grieve you. can I meet you alone?" This is him rounding up the last few "evil souls" upon his quest to be reunited with his lover, Desensitised to all the darkness and bad things he has seen, he without a stutter asks nonchalantly for his victims to line up, so he can kill them quickly and frantically – with it being the final song on the album, this song is full of desperation and frustrated desire, with the man being desperate to see his lover again – something similar to Gerard's inspiration for the album's cover art, which was influenced by Magritte's painting 'The Lovers'. "Another knife in my hands, a stain that never comes off the sheets. Clean me off, I'm so dirty, babe" Again, a metaphorical use of words. By a stain never coming off the sheets, the narrator is referencing his tainted soul and inability to take back what he's done. "Touched by angels, though, I fall out of grace. I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day" As a last resort for him to be back with his lover, the narrator has made a deal with the devil to kill 1000 evil souls, and then he can be back with his lover. The 'I fall out of grace' comes from making a deal with the devil, and the sin of murder, all so maybe he could live with his lover once again. The album is dripping with religious imagery – falling out of grace is a bible reference to The Fall, when the angels, out of what is presumably desire and greed, misused their given grace (free will) from God, and so – as the name suggests - fell. "And we'll all dance alone to the tune of your death; We'll love again, we'll laugh again, and it's better off this way, so much better off this way." By this it means, after he finishes killing the evil souls, everything will be so much better, and they can be reunited as one again. (Or, at least, this is what he's repeating to himself to keep going – the hope drives him to go on. The repetition is comforting to the narrator as he tries to remain calm through all of this, almost like the repetition of a prayer.) "Never again, and never again, they gave us two shots to the back of the head And we're all dead now." The narrator has been tricked – he had killed 999 evil souls, and only by the time it came to the final one did he realise the 1000th evil soul was his own. Being 'shot in the back of the head' would literally mean as well as the other 999 evil men and his lover, the narrator is now dead, but is also symbolic of the double-crossing and betrayal of the deal. "Well I tried, I tried! One more night, one more night... Well I'll laugh out, cry out, laugh out loud! I tried, well, I tried." He wants one more chance to be reunited with what he truly believes is his destiny, spending the rest of eternity with his love. "Cause I tried, but I lied" I think this means, since he was the 1000th evil soul, if he hadn't have "lied" he wouldn't have have been the 1000th evil soul? And he seems to be begging for forgiveness from his lover because he's just trying to tell her that he did try to be with her, but, because of the wrongs he did, it all came back upon him and it layed him even further away from her in one way. "And we'll love again, we'll laugh again, we'll cry again and we'll dance again. And it's better off this way, so much better off this way; I can't clean the blood off the sheets in my bed. And never again, and never again, they gave us two shots to the back of the head and we're all dead now." Again, going over what I said before - he can't get rid of the staining of all the wrong he's done from his soul, and nothing can be undone. These lines are tinged with desperation and the last lingering threads of hope, evoking again the repetition of comfort for what he hoped could once be – to laugh, love, cry, dance again – all basic human feelings of emotion he is unable of, possibly because of his desensitisation to the surrounding world, possibly due to the loss of his lover, and possibly due to the loss of himself on this journey. |
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| Gerard Way – No Shows Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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When I first heard this song live, Gerard stated before playing it that "this song is about control." Having heard him say that, you can put that idea and concept into view while listening to it, and it really changes the song perspective and decodes it, almost. Of course this decoding will be different for everyone, as any piece of music is polysemic to listeners. What this represents and means to me could be completely different for somebody else. |
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| Twenty One Pilots – Before You Start Your Day Lyrics | 9 years ago |
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This song reminds me of something referenced in Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger, where Franny is discussing a book she's reading, and a pilgrim is exploring ways of praying incessantly. Long story short, she says how the pilgrim learns that the 'prayer' becomes self-active, and, in the words of Franny: "I don't know what, but something happens, and the words get synchronized with the person's heartbeats... Which has a really tremendous, mystical effect on your whole outlook. I mean that's the whole point of it, more or less. I mean you do it to get an absolutely new concept of what everything's about." My point being, if people repeat things enough, it becomes like second nature to people - we're BORN being used to breathing, and we do it without even realising. To me, this may be what he means when he says "I'm in your mind, I'm singing La-da La-da La-da La-da La-da La-da Da" - this repetition is a coping mechanism for the world, and becomes a way of life for these people, similar to a prayer. With this repetition, the changing of perspective occurs: "Nowhere were they holy Open up your eyes and see The clouds above will hold you The clouds above will sing." Though something/someone you used to believe in may have faltered in your perspective and faith, there's so much else if you just open up your eyes. This world - this universe, even - isn't one dimensional, and if you open your mind, you'll come to grasp that and maybe even learn to cope better with things. Though in a rough patch in life you may feel like it's never going to change, through time and learning and growing from the situation, you'll find your own "La-da La-da La-da La-da La-da La-da Da", something Tyler probably learnt first hand with his own life experiences. |
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