March to the Sea

All of humanity is blindly following, heading straight towards death. People have even gotten tired of trying to find anything better ("No one looks up anymore") for fear that it will make them see the truth, despair, and be vulnerable. God comes in the form of a spaceship, offering salvation. However, his own doubt fights back, saying that the hopeless march is the only way.

He is sick of the march and decides to follow God's way instead. Still, he must continue on earth with the rest of the marchers.

When I listen to this song, I hear that he's on the path to suicide and that he's mindlessly "marching to the sea" when he hears a voice telling him to follow them instead, to live, and that he's fighting his "counterparts", like later to be introduced Blurryface. I think the meaning that most people have submitted is very interesting.

I could be a little bit biased, as I naturally would find a meaning in the lyrics I can connect with. Everyone finds their own meaning in art, or in this case music, so I may be interpreting the song wrong. I think this song is a very, very dark song. I think that it is about suicide, and I find it to have a pretty accurate description of what struggling with suicide is like. "The march to the sea" I think refers to everything that happens once someone's made up their mind leading up to their death. "We're dying with every step we take" "we're dying with every breath we make" shows how painful it is to keep going through the motions of life while struggling with suicide. And I think that the line he talks about shows how common it is for someone to be struggling with depression and having thoughts of ending their life, "heaven forbid they see you cry" people in this place tend to bottle up their feelings which almost always makes the problem worse and this silent suffering is often what causes people to get to the point where they feel they have no other option. "And as we near the end of land, and our ocean graves are just beyond the sand, I ask myself the question, why, I fall in line" is that moment just before acting on your thoughts where you stop for a second and reflect and ask yourself if this is really what you want. The spaceship that says "follow me instead" isn't necessarily any one specific thing, it is, rather, anything that might temporarily save us from ending our own lives. The most powerful lyrics, in my opinion, "then the wages of war will start inside my head with my counterpart and the emotionless marchers will chant the phrase 'this lines the only way'" I think the marchers in this case aren't actual people, they're the voices in your head that tell you that you're worthless or that you're better off dead or that you don't deserve life or that you can't handle it anymore, and the war in his head is because now there's another voice that might see one reason to stay alive among millions of reasons to give up. At this point you're fighting a battle in your head because part of you wants nothing more than to give up, but another part sees a reason to keep going. This war inside your head is one that will keep you up at night and distract you from everything going on around you and it's one that will have you laying on your bathroom floor with the door locked trying make a decision or even just somehow make the voices stop. It's a war that you can never win, no matter which side you pick. "Take me up, seal the door, I don't want to march here anymore, I realize that this line is dead, so I'll follow you instead" is when you've decided that maybe today won't be your last day, but then the song takes what may be an unexpected turn; "so then you put me back in my place, so I might start another day, and once again I will be in a March to the sea" means that just because you chose not to end your life today doesn't mean the battle is over, because every single day for what may even be the rest of your life you will find yourself again fighting the urge and thoughts of ending your life. Like I said I may be wrong, but that is what I felt. Like I said this song is very dark, and I found a connection with everything he says.

Along with what everyone else has said, I believe this is an amazing allusion referring to "Sherman's March to the Sea". This is the name most commonly used for the Savannah Campaign during the American Civil War. I won't bore you with details, but they basically tore through the southern enemy terretory, like badasses, without supply lines. It was considered one of the most revolutional acts in American history.

Very strong lyrics, but what's new?... These guys are genius.

This song really helped me see that it was okay to follow a different path than everyone else. I was stuck in this cult religion, and sure some people might see the space ship as God, but for me I don't believe in a god. The spaceship was just someone who had helped me see the truth and told me that it's okay. Marching in a line is not going to do you any good in the end. You're going to die like everyone else, but you don't have to live like everyone else. "Death does not distinguish between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep on living." So the message I go was really to not follow the flow of society. Or that religion isn't the only way. Of course that is just my opinion and what I thought of when I listened to this. So thank you.

I am positive song is based off Matthew 4:18 As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 19 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” I know people interpret it different but it is sad that such a beautiful song is interpreted to mean suicide when it actually has a hopeful undertone. It is not just "religious" - it is about the calling, the push, any person who knows Jesus has - life gets you down, you go other ways, but in the end, God tells you He has a bigger purpose for your life, and that is to "fish for men" - tell people they are loved by God, and the good news of Jesus.

Tyler is on the "wide path" which leads to death and destruction instead of the "narrow path" of salvation.

The UFO is God.

stay alive frens

I think that the meaning to every song is different to a lot of people. Personally I don't believe in God. This song to me is about suicide. When it says heaven forbid they see you cry the person might be getting bullied and hides their sadness. Then the spaceship is someone appearing into their life and saving them. When people say this way is the only way they might be saying it's the only way that I might actually be happy. This is some of the meaning of this song to me.

the line of people marching- to me- is of all the people surrendering themselves to the mainstream music and fashion. Tyler, or whoever the character is in this song, wants to stop marching and go their/ his own way. but he/ they has a fear that he/they will get beaten up by the others or whoever is in charge. he / they hears' hear a voice- the unknown, emo (to outsiders), meaningful and underground music- and it's telling him to follow their unknown and amazing ways. the spaceship is the bands and people within it. but one day the character/ tyler will fall back into the "normal" music sound, or in this case march to the sea.

This song I think has a much deeper meaning than what I used to think it was. At first, I thought it was where he was an ordinary guy who fell in love but got his heart broken cause of the lyrics, "but then you put me back in my place, so I might just start another day" for the part of where he got his heart broken but learned it has a much deeper meaning than that. What I think it means is how he is on the walk to suicide. And how there's so many other people who are trying to kill themselves as well. I say this because of the lyrics, "And our ocean graves are just beyond the sand" and "A strangers back is all I see, and he's only a few feet in front of me." Saying there's other people who are making the same decision as him. But I think he is still deciding if he really wants to commit suicide from the lyrics "i ask myself the question why, I fall in line." As if he is asking him the question if he really wants to kill himself. So the song talks about how he is trying to decide to kill himself. Cause of the lyrics "I see a spaceship in the sky and hear a voice inside my head, follow me instead." As if the spaceship is his other voice saying, don't do this, you have so much to do still in your life, follow me instead. And to prove this is inside his mind. "Then the wages of war will start, inside my head with my counterpart." The counterpart being the spaceship that's inside his mind. And wages war as in he is debating what will come out of this and what wont. But at the end "Once again I will be in a march to the sea." Is where they decide at the end, to really commit suicide.

Like many of twenty one pilots songs, there are two very different stories being told here. (In my opinion, at least) The first story us one of someone struggling with depression. The cycle of the depressed marching to their deaths reminds me of Chopin's "The Awakening". Edna drowned herself in the ocean, believing that death is the only way to be free. So he's stopped... By a space ship? Yes. It takes something that will sound absurd to everyone else to draw someone out of this death march. He found freedom from everything in his life that was marching towards death through another voice- someone who stuck out from the crowd, a strange new hobby, a weird event. Because depression requires something crazy to break the monotony of life.

The second is a more religious take. Obviously not the only message this song offers, but I first heard this song in 2009 before twenty-one pilots released their first album (they performed at my church), so I can personally attest to the depth of Tyler's faith when he wrote March to the Sea.

This second story is the slow march towards death. There's obviously no way to escape it, so everyone is marching towards it mindlessly. The narrator doesn't even consider himself to be hopeless- the idea of hope is entirely off his radar. He doesn't even look up because he doesn't want anyone to see him looking to the sky. Yet he does look up. We know this because he sees something there that is entirely foreign- something from an entirely different world. Something that tells him there's another way. Confused by this space ship, he ignores it and continues in the familiar path he's always walked down, but this "alien" offers him the chance to never die. His counterparts are confused, telling him he's being irrational, and he KNOWS he's being irrational. But he chooses to trust this alien. But then this alien puts him back where he started... With the knowledge that he doesn't have to die. The next step, then, would be to walk alongside those marching towards death and show them that they don't have to march- that there is hope of a life that will never end.

That's my take on it. It's neither a Christian song nor a secular song... it's a song about how there's always another way. There is always hope... You just have to look up.