If I had to sum up My Chemical Romance’s album, The Back Parade in one word, it would be ‘life’. Though death is the main topic and storyline, this being a concept album about a man who has cancer dying, all of the songs focus on different moments and aspects of this man’s life, such as war, religion, love, memory, fear, alienation, addiction, realization, memory, and denial. While the album keeps a very grim tone throughout, the whole hour-long experience fluctuates between optimism, pessimism, and neutrality. This roller-coaster of emotion definitely makes the album feel a bit autobiographical, which it is at points, and that this is actually a life that could be lived by you or me.

Before I get into each individual song, I’d like to talk about the album as a physical collector’s item. It looks nice on a shelf, standing out from other albums with its scratchy, old timey feel. The cover draws you in, giving only a hint of the vague, surreal artwork that is plastered throughout the booklet and back, and is what My Chemical Romance has definitely become known for. The disc, while showing that strange artwork, is a bit bland compared to the other things in the album, but is still just as expressive. The booklet is a foldout piece, showing a newspaper reel containing all the songs and lyrics on one half, and a very hyper-realistic drawing on the other, perfectly conveying the grim, yet triumphant feel of the album. When you open it, there’s a beautiful photo taken on the set of the Welcome to the Black Parade music video, showing the band and characters from the album, such as the Patient, and Mother War.

Now that we’re done with all that jazz, we can dive into the album itself.

The End is a good track to start off the album, but is a bit generic, being the expository track, introducing not the concept and storyline, but the album itself, Gerard Way obviously being tired of the band’s fame from their previous album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, with lines like “Wipe off that make up what’s in is despair.” And “If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, you can find out firsthand what it’s like to be me.” This song is a good, experimental track, using acapella, sound effects, acoustic and electric instruments. The whole thing is a bit flat though, lacking personality a little bit. The whole song seems to be just buildup to what is the drop into insanity that is its sister song, Dead.

Dead is the twin to The End, also being exposition, but this time for the character of The Patient, and his situation of only having two weeks to live, due to his illness. This song starts off showing the stages of grief in the album, this song showing denial and anger. The main character makes assumptions that his friends and family would be better off without him and also asks, “If life ain’t just a joke, then why are we laughing? Why am I dead?” This song also gives off a lot of self-righteousness, the Patient make rude, somewhat sarcastic comments to nameless individuals who will be explained later. The perspective of the lyrics is a bit confusing at times, changing from the main character to an outsider sometimes within a verse and this gives the whole song a disorienting and chaotic feel, which is probably the emotion that would be felt being told that you’re going to die. The sound is very upbeat, almost sounding like a sped up version of a Ramones or Sex Pistols song, which contrasts with the dark, almost schizophrenic lyrics. It definitely sets up the mood and concept of the album well and allows the listener to be prepared for the rest of the songs.

This is How I Disappear is the start to a romance plot thread that continues in songs throughout the album. It’s clearly the Patient looking back on the relationship and analyzing it as abusive, stressful, and tiring. Keeping secrets and mistrusting are themes that are brought up a lot in the song and clearly shows that now, through a newfound clarity in the hospital bed, the Patient can see that it couldn’t have worked. However, it also feels like the patient is looking back and mourning the relationship, causing all the emotions he would feel from it to resurface. The music is very face-paced, while also having a depressing, slow tone to it, almost causing the sensation of falling, which is the image that comes to mind whenever I listen to this song and its successor, The Sharpest Lives.

I’m just going to be upfront, The Sharpest Lives is one of my favorite songs on this album. Continuing the storyline from This is How I Disappear, this song focuses on the main character’s past drinking problems, which is very autobiographical of Gerard Way, who became a major drunk and drug addict while touring the band’s previous album, but caring enough to allow his fellow band members pull him out of it. The Patient is not so lucky though. This is obviously later in this man’s relationship with an unnamed woman, where he has resorted to drinking to try and escape the reality of his cruel romance. The whole song is a cry for help and again gives the sensation of falling down a never ending pit, which I assume Way was trying to create to use as a metaphor for addiction. It is by far the best song dealing with the romance subplot, expressing the feeling of this relationship blatantly while also using subtext and the sound of the music to create a harmony of themes.

Following that is the song that everybody knows from this album, Welcome to the Black Parade, it starts off with an excellent verse to a haunting piano. “When I was a young boy, my father took me into the city to see a marching band. He said, ‘Son, when you grow up, would you be the savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned.’ He said, ‘Will you defeat them? Your demons and all the non-believers? The plans that they have made? Because one day I’ll leave you a phantom to lead you in the summer to join the Black Parade.’” I could listen to the opening repeated 20 times and never get tired of it. I just love the whole theme of that verse. It’s a coming of age story in itself, the fact that, when we were all kids, we strived to be heroes, but then when we age, we realize that pizzas don’t deliver themselves, and life can be a disappointment sometimes. The rest of the song is… meh. I don’t hate it. The music alone makes it worth listening to. It’s just, the lyrics are kind of boring and generic, and they don’t really seem to go with the rest of the album. It just seems like a weird fantasy that the Patient is having about his childhood, and the whole song is sung from the perspective of the Black Parade leader. I do like the concept that Gerard gives, in that he thinks when you die, death will arrive in the form of your greatest memory, but I would’ve liked to see that expanded upon. The lyrics definitely could’ve used tightening up and the theme of coming of age or death coming in the form of a memory should’ve actually been brought up instead of just vague statements about death and legacy. A good song, but could’ve been better.

I Don’t Love You is my least favorite song on this album. The music is way to upbeat and too high octave wise in a way that makes it stick out in the line up like a sore thumb. And the lyrics just feel uninspired like Gerard wrote them as just a way to get another song on the album. It gives kind of an ending to the main romance subplot, yes, but it’s a bad ending. I would’ve liked to see the Patient get mad at the girl for leaving instead of being whiny and depressed. I don’t like the song, we’re moving on.

Turning around from my least favorite song on the album, we have my favorite song on the album. House of Wolves is very clearly an attack on organized religion, which is brought up in the previous album with Thank You For the Venom, and in the succeeding album with Destroya. The pounding drums at the beginning really wake you up from the slow, boring mess of I Don’t Love You and get you prepared for an almost Sex Pistols-esque song. There’s a lot of self-righteousness in the lyrics, which I’m a huge fan of in bands like Sum 41, Nirvana, and the Offspring. Even though it doesn’t really fit into the general theme of the album, much like the later song, Teenagers, I still feel like this is an important part of the main character’s life. You could read into the lyrics and just how vague they are in a lot of different ways. Maybe the Patient tried to become a priest, but was banned from the church because of his alcoholism. Maybe he’s really just been an atheist at heart all his life and never really fit in with a Christian community, which is something in life I’m sure a lot of people can relate to. The music itself is fast paced, energetic, striking and bold and really complements the satire nature of the lyrics, with lines like “So get the choir boys around you, it’s a complement I swear.” The song is really well written (musically and lyrically), and is catchy as all hell. I love the song and would recommend listening to it in any mood.

Cancer is what I Don’t Love You should’ve been. It’s simple, really only using a guitar and a piano. It’s short, being one of the shortest songs, among The End. and Dead!. The lyrics are beautiful and personal. It’s just all around a really good song. This is the proper ending to the romance subplot. This isn’t the break-up. This is far after, when both characters have lived completely separate lives and you really feel like both of them are looking back. The emotions expressed in this song are tear-jerking and I love it.

Mama is a… complex song to say the least. The “Mama” that is expressed to throughout the song could either be a metaphor for a war that the character was in, or the character’s actual mother. Though, the war metaphor works a lot better in context, both can be interpreted and neither are wrong. This song could either be a commentary on war and a very anti-war song, or it could be a commentary on bad parenting in America and how children are raised to praise war. It works either way. The self-righteousness is in here again and it’s also a stray from theme, much like Teenagers later in the album. The upbeat music really contrasts the dark and brooding tone of the lyrics, which is something My Chemical Romance does very well. This song is very catchy and is also a song that you will feel really weird for having stuck in your head after singing it aloud in public.

Sleep feels like the precursor to Disenchanted and also has a lot of themes that I feel are perfected in Disenchanted. This song is a very slow, emotional song without much looking back, but has the character expressing how he feels in the moment. I imagine this song taking place when he’s getting a lot of presents and care from family and friends, even though everyone knows that he doesn’t have much time left. I love how honest the Patient is in this song, asking to be treated as he is, not as he would like to be remembered. When a person dies, the people close to them tend to glorify them out of a very strong respect for the dead that, while may be deserved in some cases, is just a bald faced lie in other cases. This again showing the metaphor and commentary that Gerard Way tends to put in his songs.

Saying that Teenagers is out of place on this album would be an understatement. Much like I’m Not Okay (I Promise) on the band’s previous album, this gives an insight on how they felt about their school lives. Granted, it’s tried to be fit into the album, in that the character is remembering what it was like to be alienated as a teenagers, but it just feels like it’s on a completely different album. The music is much less metally than the rest of the songs and almost sounds like something the Rolling Stones could’ve written. On it’s own, the song is excellent. But compared to the rest of the songs on the album, it’s definitely the black sheep of the album’s lineup.

Disenchanted is beautiful. I almost want this paragraph to be done with that, because every time I listen to this song, I’m blown away with how beautiful it is. There is so much emotion crammed into this song, not just through the lyrics, but through the tone of the singing and the music. It almost feels like it’s own storyline in general, this song being the entire story of how the Patient finally excepts his fate and is able to look back on his life satisfied, though not completely. This song is probably the most personal song on the album and the whole thing would just feel incomplete without it.

Famous Last Words is probably the best ending to an album ever, only rivaled by Something in the Way on Nevermind, or Summit on Bangarang. The whole song sums up the album, and also works as the main character’s death scene and it is glorious. The guitar tracks are edgy and dark at some times, while also being somber and sweet at other points. The music flows so harmoniously, it’s almost like a trance, pulling you deeper and deeper into the song. It has elements of every song, from the falling sensation given from The Sharpest Lives, to the personal tenderness of Cancer. The ending to the story is so great. You have the Patient feeling an explosion of emotions from denial to acceptance which can change so drastically, you barely realized they’ve changed before listening to the song over and over and over again. A perfect ending to album.

The storytelling of Black Parade is very strong, something that the band had improved upon from Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. The music is amazing in all of the songs, but some songs could use help lyrically, to put it likely. Though it did have some songs that I don’t really care for, it is in my top albums, along with all of My Chemical Romance’s other albums.

Full Album on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu1UiaENGBg

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