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.
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.