The Black Parade: The Ramblings of a Mad-man
Like others, when I heard that My Chemical Romance was doing shows again, the little depressed 13 year old got pretty excited, but if you thought I would be spending a couple grand to see them play, you are dilusional.
That being said, I did decide to dust off a couple of the old records that I frequented as an adolescent. One MCR album that has continued to resurface throughout the years has been their 3rd album "The Black Parade". This is a concept album that follows an unnamed protagonist called "The Patient", through his untimely death and exploration through the after-life.
This is great. Cool concept. Case closed. Well now, reader. It's almost like you forgot that I get obsessed with things. I have willfully spent the last week listening, relistening, digging, and contemplating a functional story arc that I thought was suitable for my brain. Spoiler. Nothing on the internet could really quench my need for absolution. So, with nowhere giving me a solid answer. I decided that, I too, would interpret this album and create a storyline that also doesn't give any definitive answers, but this is mainly for my own brain, and less about the reader (sorry :'( ). I've also taken some creative liberties with the plot, so fair warning.
The End.
The start of the album opens to the sound of a heart monitor where "The Patient" is surrounded by loved ones, and is saying his final goodbyes, and as they gather, the spectacle of his death ensues accompanied by the introduction of a drum beat and a heavy guitar riff. The song ends on a flatline, and we are thrust into the next track Dead!
Dead!
"The Patient" has died. He's greeted by a fanfare explaining his death and mocking his final two weeks of his life, including someone mimicking the doctor that told him that his heart was going to fail in 2 weeks. There is jubilee for how grime the situation at hand is. He is stunned as the Chorus swells into La La La. The song ends, and the fanfare departs leaving "The Patient" looking at his loved ones and his body.
This is how I Disappear
This song can be interpreted multiple ways, but from my interpretation. This is a conversation between "The Patient" and his lover. She's telling his dead body that without him, she will disappear forever, and he feels the same way about her. This song is actually inspired by the seances that Harry Houdini's wife preformed asking about death because of their fear of lose and fear of death. So I feel that it's "The Patient's" loved one trying to contact him when Gerard sings "Can you hear me cry out to you? Words I thought I'd choke on, figure out." "The Patient" tries to respond "I'm really not so with you anymore, I'm just a ghost, So I can't hurt you anymore." As this is going on, the patient is getting pulled farther and farther away into the "afterlife", which leads him to land in a dark voided area, almost like the side of a road in a city. This brings us to our next song.
The Sharpest Lives
Our protagonist sits alone, on the side of a desolate road, wondering if this is death, and while sitting there, he has the opportunity to remember his life, and the debauchery he indulged in. The benders he went on, the late nights out destroying his health. He realizes that he lived recklessly and comes to the conclusion that his life was going to burn out sooner than later. Off in the distance he hears a chorus and sees a float coming his way. It's the Black Parade.
This is The Black Parade. It's death exemplified as a parade that his father took him to at a young age that once gave him hope that he would be a great influence on others and their broken lives. He is swept up in the jubilee and grandiose visuals of this morbid parade. "The Patient" decides to join the parade to continue his death adventure, which leads to his introduction to Mother War and her two companions, Fear and Regret. Regret introduces itself to "The Patient" and starts to show him a moment in his life that he regretted while they continue with the black parade.
I Don't Love You
"The Patient" has a lot to regret in his life, but the moment that is brought up in this particular moment is breaking the heart of his love from "This is how I Disappear". He didn't want to continue to hurt her with his reckless life and the pain of losing him to Cancer (Which we will get to later). So he decides to tell her that he wants nothing to do with her and informs her that he doesn't love her, tearing her down along the way. As he's leaving she delivers the line "Would you have the guts to say... I don't love you, like I loved you, yesterday". Which he responds "I don't love you, like I loved you yesterday." It's tragic, and has distracted "The Patient" from the course of The Black Parade that arrives at a bar called "The House of Wolves". "The Patient" and Mother War enter. To his chagrin is confronted by the devil zoomorphized as two wolves.
House of Wolves
House of Wolves is a hoping swing club with bright flames and the Devil playing a fast paced, upbeat swing song explaining that all there are sinners and they need to accept that fact. This of course, terrifies the patient, and realizes that he is going to burn in Hell, and no matter what he does, he is going to be there for eternity. He never really contemplated Hell in this death and the brush with death he had with his fight with Cancer. He goes outside to catch his breath and gets thrown into a flashback.
The patient has been struggling through a fight with cancer, and as the song opens, he is explaining how he wants his belongings sorted and how he doesn't want those he loves to see him, because cancer has ravaged his body. He is scared of death, and doesn't want to leave the woman he loves. Around the halfway point, the drum beat kicks in, and the song's theme turns hopeful, and almost positive. In my own interpretation, he is given the news that his cancer has gone into remission, but they need to do an operation to remove a tumor close to his heart/lungs (which brings us back to the doctor saying that during the operation, they found a complication in his heart back in Dead!) He says that if he does die, he wants his love to be true.
Mama
Aside: Admittedly. This one gave me a bit of trouble, and I had two different theories, and finally decided that the two theories went hand in hand
"The Patient" returns to the bar and sits down besides Mother War, and realizes that he knows her, he's known her for most of his life. In his younger years, before getting sick, "The Patient" was in the army. Fighting wars, and murdering all that stood in his way. It didn't matter who, innocent, or not. He was a true monster. He writes home to his literal mother letting her know the horrors he's seeing/participating in. She is horrified and disowns him, feeling dejected he turns to the mother that has always accepted him and embraced him, Mother War. He aligns with her views, and completely disregards his literal mother even up until he gets sick, and she tries to reconcile with him, but he again lets her know her son is long gone, and fully embraces his Mother War. Leaving his literal mother to sob (as heard at the end of the song).
"The Patient" and Fear sit and talk about the terrors that came from his horrible actions and the nightmares he has experienced. "The Patient" starts to realize that this is his destiny, and there is no redemption for him. Nobody should cry for him, because he really isn't sorry for the things he did in life. He approaches Mother War to inform her that he will be joining her in Hell, and she embraces him and tells him to "just sleep" and rest for a minute in her arms.
Teenagers
Another Aside: The band has admitted that this song doesn't really fit the narrative of the album, but I am going to try and shove it in there the best that I can.
"The Patient" has embraced his fate and now wants to know where his path took a turn towards the horrifying person that he became, so Mother War shows him that as a teenager, he was over-medicated, told to conform, and highly monitored. After so much, "The Patient" couldn't take it anymore, and decided that since "teenagers scare the living sh*t" out of the adults around him, he's going to really give them something to be scared of, and turned to debauchery.
Disenchanted
It's time for black parade continue on it's decent to true Hell. As they leave, Regret stops "The Patient". It explains that it regrets aligning with Mother War, and doesn't want "The Patient" to make the same mistake, so it shows "The Patient" the good things in life, in hopes that it allows "The Patient" to regret dying/not looking for redemption (depending which ending you choose). This causes "The Patient" to realize that he does need to change and seek redemption. Regret tells "The Patient" to "Go. Go away. Run Away." Which he does, and which to our last song.
Famous Last Words
In the climactic conclusion to the album, "The Patient" is running back to the hospital, finding his confidence, and realizing that he is worthy of forgiveness. This however, is where the ambiguity of the album end forks. Below, I will outline the two outcomes that the band leaves up to us to decide. Here are the two possibilities that I thought were expressed and I will let you decide for yourself:
Happy Ending
"The Patient" realizes that his life is incomplete, and needs to make amends for his actions, and to find forgiveness, he must make amends with his love, and continue down the path of redemption with his true love, and become the person that she, and his mom always wanted to. So he wakes up in the hospital bed with his lover laying next to him. He expresses the "words [he] thought [he'd] never speak". No illness, or heart complication or anything anyone said could stop him going home to love and a new lease on life to become a better person and become "the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned".
"Sad" Ending
"The Patient" realizes that his life is incomplete, and needs to make amends for his actions, and to find forgiveness, he must make amends with his love, and continue down the path of redemption. He runs back to the hospital to see his lover lying next to him. He is given the opportunity to communicate with her one last time to let her know that if she stays true and not return to debauchery, he'll be forgiven through her good merits. He realizes that he needs to continue living through the afterlife and continue seeking redemption. He will walk that world alone until he can go home (Heaven).
Here we are. The end of the post. This album consumed me for a week, and with this post, my mind can finally rest. I hope you enjoyed it. Who knows, I might be completely wrong, and I wasted a week on this album, but let me know what you thought.
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