THERE ARE THESE TERRORS,
As a person, I’m detached. My thoughts are disjointed, phrases broken by self-editing, emotion repressed by too many layers of self-denial. I’ve never been great at allowing myself things to feel things, and if I do, I tend to hide it. So, when I think hard about it, I believe what has always drawn me to My Chemical Romance is the emotion.
Gerard performs emotion: he strips it from its context and pours it from himself unfiltered from every pore, dripping from every word. He sings because he has to, not because he wants to, with all the volume he can manage, as if he’s running a marathon, singing until he’s out of breath, gasping for air wherever he can because he can’t stop.
“Being a singer in a band allowed me to tap into 2 very extreme emotions, and ones I knew very well- violent happiness and theatrical despair. ”
- From “The Happy Sads”, a blog post Gerard made on his struggles with manic depression.
The Black Parade was arguably the most emotional album in MCR’s discography. The title calls forth visions of death juxtaposed with the celebratory parade imagery. It’s dark but ironic, much like their music and, as Kayla mentioned earlier, messianic in conception. Viewing white as the absence of life, Gerard sheared and bleached his hair in order to embody The Patient, the protagonist of the album, as a form of method acting.
“We would tear off our skin and expose the bones. We would become a band known as the black parade. Not a shell but a declaration.”
The writing process for the album was perhaps some of their darkest days as a band, undergoing much strife while staying at the notoriously haunted Paramour Mansion. Mikey Way, the bassist, who ended staying in the most haunted room, describes some of incidents, such as “dogs barking at thin air, doors slamming in front of people (Frankie and Gerard), and bathtubs filling with water when no one was home” that happened during their stay there in The Black Parade Deluxe Edition booklet. My Chemical Romance is no stranger to mental illness, but the experiences they had at the Paramour were nothing they had ever dealt with. Tensions ran high, causing the need for what they called “heavy rooms” where they would speak for hours after each breakdown, to try to reconcile what was happening, and eventually Mikey even had to leave the house during the writing process to seek professional help.
Written around the same time as “Famous Last Words,” and inciting the creation of two guitar tones - “Black Fire” and the wall-dropping “Nemesis” - “Sleep” in particular was inspired by recurring night terrors Gerard experienced while staying at the Paramour.
“Visions but most likely nightmares that were probably a result of stress and anxiety. In these visions I would see people that I loved dying, or Joan of Arc burning alive. I never slept, I had come across a small page of notes I had kept during these nightmares. One of the things written was “We are all just a black parade”.”
- Gerard on his nightmares at the Paramour.
The melody of “Sleep” is based off a song, “Final Dream”, from the Dune (1984) soundtrack. In Dune, Paul Atreides, the son of the Duke of the planet Caladan, sees visions of his future as he dreams. Having been sent to the desert planet Arrakis (known as Dune) as a spice ambassador, Paul discovers that he is the “Kwisatz Haderach,” a universal super being prophesied to have omniscience. “Final Dream” plays during the climax of the film after Paul has consumed The Water of Life and fallen into a trance. He rises, having seen a vision of what he must do to save the planet, and proclaims “Father, the sleeper has awakened!”. He is transformed, having become all seeing, and leads a final attack against the Emperor and accepts his role as the foretold messiah, and brings rain to Arrakis for the first time.
The Black Parade deals with what Gerard felt was his calling — if not to save the world, then to at the very least bring it hope. I think in a lot of ways “Sleep” is Gerard’s song for himself. “Famous Last Words,” while a triumphant, defiant anthem, is, at its core, a song for Mikey. When Mikey left the house, it sent the band into a spiral. I see you lying next to me, with words I thought I’d never speak refers to the memory of Mikey sleeping in Gerard’s room each night because he couldn’t stand to be alone. This eventually culminated in the output of emotion that frames “Famous Last Words,” the salvation and redemption. On the flip side, though, “Sleep” deals with guilt and lack thereof.
And through it all
how could you cry for me?
cause I don’t feel bad about it
We must remember, Gerard was raised Catholic, and had a self-described very bad experience. Black Parade is about journeys and lifetimes of development, and “Sleep” in particular is about who you are after you’ve accepted that there are parts of yourself that you can’t change. He softly confesses “the hardest part is the awful things that I’ve seen,” speaking to years of cruelty and injustice that he’s experienced and witnessed and was taught to feel responsible for. In Dune, when Paul rises after drinking the Water of Life, he gladly accepts his role as the savior of Arrakis by calling out that he has awakened. Gerard uses the same melody, not to accept his visions but subvert them. Paul prophesies greatness, but for Gerard the “final dream[s]” have always been his night terrors. He awakes finally from his visions of martyrdom and suffering, and accepts who he has become. He’s just a man, not a hero.
But “Sleep” also acts as an absolution of sorts. Unconcerned with contrition, it acts as a confessional and fights for self-acceptance. Waking up is a release from the hold dreams have on us. It’s only once the we wake up can we begin to process and move on from what we saw. There are dangerous ugly parts to us all, but rather than hide from it, we have to face them.
“Everything is temporary. When you’re happy- it’s temporary. Sad? Temporary. Job? Temporary. Bought a house? It’s only yours until you no longer need it. “
There were two ways to look at it- happy or sad. But everything was temporary.
In your worst moments, where you are staring into the blackest hole, the razor-lined mouth of a vicious, rabid animal- when you aren’t good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough- when the worst thing inside you chooses to attack- it is temporary. Likewise, when you are in those moments of pure joy, surrounded by your loved ones, high scoring skee-ball, holding your best friends hand at a concert- it is also temporary.
And that is ok.”
- The Happy Sads, Gerard Way
- Kelly
THERE ARE THESE TERRORS, As a person, I’m detached. My thoughts are disjointed, phrases broken by self-editing, emotion...
