Camisado (Relax, Relapse)

okay i'm a little late to the party but here's what i get from this song

i got really excited at the possibility of this song being a Fight Club reference because it is my all time favorite movie, and judging from Panic!'s love of Chuck Palahniuk and that they've already written a song based off of one of his novels (Time to Dance, Invisible Monsters), the idea isn't far-fetched. (Spoilers for Fight Club btw if you haven't seen/read it, and i highly recommend you do)

let's start with the name Camisado: In military tactics, a camisado, or camisade, is a surprise attack occurring at night, or at daybreak, when the enemy is supposed to be asleep. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camisado

In Fight Club, the unnamed main character/narrator has a multiple personality disorder. He "meets" a man named Tyler Durden who is later revealed to be the same person, although the narrator is unaware. In the movie, there is a ton of foreshadowing such as when the audience is taught about changeovers in film, which is used as a metaphor for the narrator switching personalties, or the camera lingering on Tyler as the words "If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?" are spoken. (holy foreshadowing batman) Tyler is infiltrating or "attacking" the narrator's mind and taking over while he is asleep, causing him to "wake up as a different person".

The multiple mentions of being in the hospital throughout the song are fairly vague when it comes to association with the movie: it's called Fight Club, people fight, people end up in the hospital.

The lines "The anesthetic never set in and I'm wondering where The apathy and urgency is that I thought I phoned in" also don't have much to do with the movie, but the idea of the patient requesting the nurse or doctor to be "apathetic" reminds me of the narrator's sarcasm and cynicism.

The pre-chorus "Just sit back, just sit back Just sit back and relax Just sit back, just sit back Just sit back and relapse again" makes me think of the narrator going through the process of switching personalities so often that he can almost "slip" back into Tyler. i know a lot of people think that the song is about a drug addict who keeps ending up in the hospital, and that Ryan said the song was influenced by his dad, and i do agree with that interpretation as well.

"Can't take the kid from the fight, take the fight from the kid" is fairly self-explanatory. The narrator has an addiction to the fight club he creates with Tyler in the film, and often goes too far when fighting. In one scene, he beats a man until he has barely any teeth left in his mouth and is completely disfigured (the guy he beats up is Jared Leto btw). If you can't keep him from fighting, end the fight club; which is what he tries to do at the end of the film when it goes too far.

The line that kind of hit me in the face was "This is the scent of dead skin on a linoleum floor". In a particularly disturbing scene in the film, Tyler and the narrator are in the kitchen (with linoleum flooring) and Tyler pours acid on the narrator's hand and holds his wrist, keeping him from washing it with vinegar to neutralize the burn. The acid burns the skin off of the top of his hand.

The repeating lines, "It's not so pleasant. And it's not so conventional It sure as hell ain't normal But we deal, we deal" are a nod at Tyler and the narrator's way of living. They are squatting in an abandoned, decomposing house that is a mile away from any sort of town. They steal and scam to make any sort of money, the narrator threatens his boss to give him a bunch of paychecks and expensive office technology before he smugly quits. Tyler and the narrator have an "unpleasant" and "unconventional" way of living, but they "deal".

Have you ever heard someone say that someone is a "decorated war veteran?" This means they fought and won medals, and are probably well known/prestigious. I think that "I'm a regular decorated emergency" is about Tyler's infamy. Tyler (the narrator believes that Tyler is the one doing this) crosses the country to set up Fight Clubs across the nation. The guys in these clubs are seen repeating certain phrases and using key words to discreetly mention that they are part of fight club (because the first rule of fight club, as everyone knows, don't talk about fight club). He also gives them the same acid burn, as a sort of initiation. He is well known and respected by every member of every fight club, and they all call him "sir". Because of this, one could consider him decorated. Calling him a decorated "emergency" nods at the fact that he is INFAMOUS, not famous.

"The bruises and contusions will remind me what you did when you wake" Now this is a favorite of mine. Notice the use of the word "you". "[...] will remind of what YOU did when YOU wake". This is the narrator speaking to Tyler, he is telling him that he is unaware of what he is doing while Tyler is in control (or awake), but the aftermath fills him in.

Then of course the first and final lines, "This was no accident This was a therapeutic chain of events". It's not an accident that this keeps happening, that Tyler keeps taking over. It's his mind, there is a chemical imbalance, a mental disorder that is causing this chain of events. It is therapeutic for the narrator because it helps him deal with himself and his failures without facing himself. Therapy is repeated in the song and in the movie. The narrator has insomnia and realized that he can only sleep when he cries, and that he can only cry when he is around other miserable people. So he starts going to support croups for cancers and parasites and blood diseases. When he "meets" Tyler, that is when Tyler fully manifests and the narrator begins speaking and interacting with him. He repeats the process of becoming Tyler as a therapeutic solution to his insomnia, and his own insecurity.

Wow this took a while to write but i had a blast doing it. I love Panic! At the Disco and Fight Club is my favorite movie so i really hope I'm right!!