In case anyone needs in-depth revenge lore here’s my masterpost:
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by American rock band My Chemical Romance is a concept album, following the Demolition Man, the Demolition Woman, the Devil, and a thousand evil men. The story begins in the last song, Demolition Lovers, of the prior album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.
Context and Controversy: There is some explaining needed before we get into the plot of Revenge. Gerard Way says in an interview that “Revenge is the story of a man and a woman who are separated by death in a gunfight. And he goes to hell, only to realize by the devil telling him that she’s still alive (There is debate on this, it will be discussed). The devil says he can be with her again if he brings the devil the souls of a thousand evil men, and the man agrees to do it, and so the devil hands him a gun and says ‘go do it.’” (Gerard Way, AOL Sessions Interview, 2004) “So obviously he kills 999 evil men, and then he realizes that the last evil man he has to kill is himself.” (Gerard Way). There is some debate, however, on the actual whereabouts of the Demolition Woman. There are no completely clear answers, it really is all up to interpretation. One theory is that the Demolition Woman is in Heaven, another is that she has survived the shootout on the highway and is alive somewhere on earth, and another theory is that the Devil has lied to the Demolition man and told him that the woman has died and gone to heaven when really, she has survived the shootout or vice versa. There are lines to prove and disprove each theory, so it really is up to interpretation.
Gerard did a drawing of the Demolition Woman on what could either be an operating table or an autopsy table (above). There is blood on the blanket or sheet that covers her below the shoulders, which could mean she’s dead or could mean she has survived, there’s really no way to tell. Either way, in any of the three theories, they are separated, and the man has agreed to kill a thousand evil men to get back to his lover. Another source of controversy or debate is track order. In My Chemical Romance’s third album, The Black Parade, which is also a concept album, the tracks are chronologically out of order. Lastly, it is also debated whether songs Helena and I’m Not Okay (I Promise) belong in the story canonically. These topics will all be discussed as I go through the story.
Act One
Demolition Lovers: This song serves as essentially a prologue to the story of Revenge. We are introduced to the Demolition Lovers (debatably, depending on your analysis of bullets. However, I’m choosing to ignore any events that happened in bullets aside from Demolition Lovers because that’s not what this master doc is about). All we know about them is that the Demolition Man is wearing a suit, the Demolition Woman’s outfit, though unclear, may be some sort of wedding dress (see album cover), and they have been shot to death on a highway.
“Hand in mine, into your icy blues / and then I’d say to you, ‘we could take to the highway’... / I’d end my days with you in a hail of bullets... / and we grow cold.” (Demolition Lovers). This sets up the beginning of the plot. We know the characters have died, and we know they died from bullets. Other lines throughout the song, however, introduce us to the relationship between our characters, which is obviously romantic. “...I’m trying / to let you know how much you mean ... / Know how much I want to show you [that] you’re the only one / and as we’re falling down, and in this pool of blood / and as we’re touching hands... / I'll see your eyes, and in this pool of blood, I’ll meet your eyes / I mean this forever.” (Demolition Lovers). This clarifies, even though it was obvious, that our characters are lovers and they obviously mean quite a lot to each other.
Importantly, the setup for the plot of Revenge is mentioned a lot in this song. “But this time, I mean it, I’ll let you know just how much you mean to me / but this time we’ll show them... all how much we mean / like a bed of roses, there’s a dozen reasons in this gun.” (Demolition Lovers). This really begins to bring up the idea of revenge and avenging their own deaths, which is exactly what the Demolition Man does in the album.
Give Em’ Hell Kid: This is the second track on the album. I believe that Helena, the first track, comes later in the story if it’s even canonically involved at all.
And so it begins. This song takes place right after the Demolition Man has agreed to this mission, this quest to kill a thousand evil men. He leaves from New Orleans, takes a dose of ephedrine (a stimulant used to increase alertness), and starts his life on the run. “Took a train outta New Orleans, and they shot me full of ephedrine / this is how we like to do it in the murder scene, can we settle up the score?” He has taken on this brand new role of mass murderer, taken stimulatory drugs to increase his efficiency, and declared that that is how it rolls for a life like this.
Despite this determination, he also talks about missing his lover. “If you were here, I’d never have a fear / so go on, live your life / but I miss you more than I did yesterday / you’re beautiful... / you’re so far away...” (Give Em’ Hell Kid). The second stanza is a line that contributes to the debate of whether the Demolition Woman is actually dead. If you choose to take it literally, he assumes she is alive. If you think she’s in heaven, or you think the devil lied about the man to her location, the line can be interpreted more among the lines of the Demolition Woman being happy in paradise (Heaven), which is mentioned a few more times throughout the album. It could go either way.
The Demolition Man, while steadfast, still doesn’t feel great about this deal. Who would? He experiences moral debates on it throughout the album, but very early on we can see him wondering if it’s worth it and if the Demolition Woman would do the same for him. “Well, I'm a total wreck and almost every day / like the firing squad or the mess you made... / We never wanted it to be this way / for all our lives / do you care at all?” (Give Em’ Hell Kid)
Lastly, there is the line: “Well, don’t I look pretty looking down the street in the best damn dress I own?” This could be taken metaphorically, the dress being some sort of determination-related confidence, but I see it more literally. I think he could have been in drag for a disguise or even implying prostitution. The line “What did you call me?” leads me to believe the Demolition Man could have been called some sort of homophobic slur, (which I can conclude from the next line, “Well, there’s no way I’m kissing that guy.” ) Also fun fact, Gerard used to crossdress throughout college, but. Anyway. This take on it is interesting, because we see the Demolition Man struggle with a question of sexuality throughout the album as well, first explored in the next track on the album, To The End.
To The End: This song was originally based on William Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily. In this story, a woman, abandoned by her husband, lives a reclusive life in a house with her father. When her father dies, the coroners have to convince her to let them bury the body, which she has been keeping in the house for 3 days. After this, she rarely goes out, until years later when she meets Homer, a northerner, who is said to “like men” which could either be taken as homosexuality or that he likes to remain a bachelor. The story is from 1930, so it’s likely that it could have been phrased so vaguely on purpose, as Faulkner would have been arrested had it been a direct allusion to homosexuality. Rumors spread that Emily and Homer have married, and no one sees either of them for a long time, shut up inside the house together.
Until Emily goes out to buy poison, “for rats.”
When Emily dies, they break open a part of the house that has been shut off for years and find Homer’s long-decayed body in a bed. On the pillow next to him is a strand of Emily’s hair, implying that she was in the habit of sleeping next to the decomposed body.
The main takeaway of why this story is important, is Emily is upset that her husband did not love her, either due to the fact that he was gay or that he was simply not interested in marriage.
This same double meaning is exhibited in To The End, in which the Demolition Man murders an entire wedding reception.
It’s clear in this song that the Demolition Man is getting a little out of control with this killing spree, maybe even beginning to enjoy himself. He goes to this mansion where a wedding is taking place and kills every person inside. Certainly, not all of these people were “evil men,” which means that the Demolition Man is on some sort of power high. “He calls the mansion, not a house, but a tomb / He's always choking from the stench and the fumes / The wedding party all collapsed in the room / So send my resignation to the bride and the groom.” (To The End). We can see that it's still in the beginning of his quest, though, because he is still not used to the smell of corpses or blood. Even though he has killed probably hundreds by now, that’s still out of a thousand. He’s got a long way to go.
He thinks of the house as “not a house, but a tomb,” implying that he does in fact plan to kill every person inside. This also can refer to A Rose for Emily, in that multiple people have died and decomposed in that house. Everyone is “collapsed,” either in that they are dead or they are on the ground begging him not to shoot. He’s gotten snarky with it, too, “send my resignation to the bride and the groom,” proof of this confidence that he’s good at his job, and he’s getting it done.
Here’s where the first hint at the sexuality crisis the Demolition Man experiences comes into play, with that same vague, double meaning as the one in A Rose for Emily. “He's not around, he's always looking at men / Down by the pool, he doesn't have many friends, as they are
/ Face down and bloated, snap a shot with the lens.” (To The End). This line could either mean he’s not present in his life, because he’s so focused on finding and hunting down all these evil men that it’s all he can think about, or that he’s not around his lover and he’s now made a habit of checking out other dudes. I personally think it means both, that this double meaning exists for a reason. It’s the same as A Rose For Emily- either meaning that you choose to accept means that the man is not present with his lover because of something in the way.
The second part of the line refers to him having no friends- understandably because he kills most of the people he interacts with.
The pre-chorus is him wondering again if the Demolition Woman would do this for him as well.
“If you marry me / Would you bury me? / Would you carry me to the end?” (To The End)
The chorus really confuses me. “(Say goodbye) to the vows you take / (And say goodbye) to the life you make / (And say goodbye) to the heart you break / And all the cyanide you drank.” (To the End). I really have no idea what’s going on here. “Say goodbye to the vows you take” could either be about him defying his morals and ethical values because he’s murdering all these people, or it could have something to do with marriage vows, which could be in relation to the Demolition Lovers or the people who were getting married that he murdered. The cyanide bit also confuses me; in A Rose For Emily, Emily uses arsenic to poison her husband. I don’t know. The chorus is up to interpretation.
“She keeps a picture of the body she lends / Got nasty blisters from the money she spends / She's got a life of her own and it shows by the Benz / She drives at 90 by the Barbie's and Ken's.” (To The End). I think this line is what the Demolition Man thinks the Demolition Woman is up to in heaven. Heaven is supposed to be paradise, so he thinks she’s having the time of her life (no pun intended) up there while he’s doing all this work to get her back. He shows bitterness about this topic multiple times throughout the album.
“If you ever say never, too late / I'll forget all the diamonds you ate / Lost in coma and covered in cake / Increase the medication / Share the vows at the wake (kiss the bride).” (To the End). This continues the bitterness, the Demolition Man saying he’ll forgive her for having fun up in heaven while he’s suffering down here if she marries him. This whole song, I think, speaking of weddings, is about the Demolition Man wanting to marry the woman. The song starts by taking place during a wedding, so it’s not unusual that the Demolition Man would be thinking about it. “If you ever say [it’s] never too late” is probably about her commitment, and so is the chorus, along with “share the vows at the wake,” which I think means he wants to get married as soon as he dies again to go back to the afterlife to be with her. While we can’t see much of the demolition woman’s outfit on the album cover, (See paragraph on Demolition Lovers) I believe it could be a wedding dress. It has sort of a lacy neckline and appears to be white, so it’s possible. The man is also wearing a suit, and they look like they're about to kiss, so it's entirely plausible.
You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison: Featuring vocals of The Used’s Bert McCracken, is when the Demolition Man, with a hit to his belief that he is invincible, is caught by authorities and sent to prison.
“In the middle of a gunfight / In the center of a restaurant / They say, "Come with your arms raised high" / Well, they're never gonna get me / Like a bullet through a flock of doves.”
It’s a common pattern throughout the album; the Demolition Man starts to believe he is untouchable, godly almost, and then something sets him back and he completely breaks down. This is the first time his invincibility gets shattered, when he becomes incarcerated and it slows down his mission. “To wage this war against your faith in me.” (Prison). He’s had this huge halt in his progress, and he’s afraid Demolition Womanis losing hope that he’ll see her again (even though she doesn’t know he’s doing this in the first place), and that she’ll stay loyal to him. We see the first mentions of religious belief sprinkled throughout the song as well: “On your mother's eyes, say a prayer / Say a prayer / …as God had made us.” (Prison). This theme is explored more in coming tracks Interlude and Thank You For The Venom.
It is also the track that really begins to explore this sexuality crisis the Demolition Man is having. Let’s be real: Gay sex is not new for prisons. It’s really not. And we know he’s been questioning this identity for a while now (See Paragraph on To The End), so it was bound to happen sometime, especially when he’s trapped with only a bunch of other men in the same situation for an undetermined amount of time… “Now, but I can't, and I don't know / How we're just two men as God had made us / Well, I can't, well, I can, yeah.” (Prison). Forgive me but I cannot think of a heterosexual explanation for this. I really can’t. The last stanza is the Demolition Man having some sort of inner conflict with himself about morals, like, should I really be doing this? And while he feels guilty, he decides he clearly doesn't feel guilty enough because he keeps on doing it. “Too much, too late / Or just not enough of this pain in my heart for your dying wish / I'll kiss your lips again.” (Prison). In the last stanza, he could be talking either about the Demolition Woman or some guy that he’s formed some sort of sexual and/or romantic bond with inside the prison.
Unfortunately, while consensual sex is not new for prison, neither is non-consensual. It can be inferred that the Demolition Man experienced this during his incarceration with these lines: “My cellmate's a killer, they make me do push-ups in drag / …What they ask of you will make you want to say, "So long" / Well, I don't remember / Why remember you?” (Prison). Something else common in prison is trying to effeminate one partner- to pretend like what they’re doing isn’t gay (it’s gay), which could explain the drag bit. We also see him mention a little bit of memory repression from this trauma that has been induced upon him.
Prison is also where he starts having his first mental decline, understandably. He’s become a mass murderer, he’s struggling with his identity, he’s away from everything he knows and loves, and it’s taking a toll on him mentally; he’s even beginning to toy with the notion of his own death, whether sentenced by law or by suicide. “But nobody cares if you're losing yourself / Am I losing myself? / Well, I miss my mom / Will they give me the chair? / Or lethal injection, or swing from a rope, if you dare? / Nobody knows all the trouble I've seen / …Life is but a dream for the dead.” (Prison). The last stanza has a double meaning: It could continue the theme of wishing he were dead, or it could continue the theme of bitterness toward his lover, who to his knowledge, is having a great time in heaven.
At the end of the song, the Demolition Man and presumably some of his prison friends break out of the jail. “Do you have the keys to the hotel? 'Cause I'm gonna string this motherfucker on fire / …And well, I, I won't go down by myself / But I'll go down with my friends.” (Prison). “The hotel” could be referring to where he’ll stay when he gets out of the prison, referenced later in the album: “Check into the hotel Bella Muerte…” (The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You) (which may also be a metaphor, more on that when we get to Jetset Life.) So it can be assumed that there was a breakout, the fire being literal or metaphorical, either way meaning they’re leaving the place in shambles. The last stanza may also have a double meaning, potentially being a sexual innuendo as well as a declaration of camaraderie.
Interlude: This track on the album actually comes after The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You, but I think it makes more sense after Prison. A very climactic, high-intensity part of the story has just occurred, everything’s a mess, he’s just broken out of prison, what’s going on with the Demolition Woman… leaving us wondering what will happen next, which seems like the perfect time for an intermission. Yes, I agree that typically, the intermission is more toward the middle or ⅔ mark, but to me this is the best placement for it.
Interlude only has three lines: “Saints protect her now / Come angels of the Lord / Come angels of unknown.” (Interlude). This is the Demolition Man praying to any higher being that he can think of to protect his lover and keep her safe. Thus, the end of Act One.
Act Two
The Ghost of You: This song is sort of a duet between the Demolition Lovers, the lines changing perspective from the woman and from the man. Gerard has done this in other songs as well, such as Famous Last Words, where there is a conversation happening between two different people, but the switches between speakers are unmarked. I’ll mark who I think said what for each mentioned line.
DW: “I never said I'd lie and wait forever.”
DM: “If I died / We'd be together / I can't always just forget her / But she could try.”
DW “At the end of the world / Or the last thing I see / You are never coming home, never coming home / Could I? Should I?”
I think the last line from the Demolition Woman is her wondering if it’s okay for her to let the man go. To reach some sort of acceptance that she’s never going to see him again.
DM: “Ever get the feeling that you're never all alone? / And I remember now / At the top of my lungs in my arms, she dies.” This, to some, is confirmation that the Demolition Woman is in fact dead. It could also be argued, however, that the line “If I died, we’d be together” could have come from the woman and not the man, which contradicts itself with the “she dies” lyric. These contradicting lines can be placed into either the alive or heaven theory by rearranging who said what, or it can be placed in the category of “the devil lied to the demolition man” if you say the woman said “If I died we’d be together.” Any of them work for the story; the point is, she misses him and wonders if it's messed up of her to try and accept the loss of him.
Throughout the album, the Demolition Man has this constant fear of “falling,” which I think means dying or failing his mission. “If I fall…” It’s mentioned more later on in the album, but it brings up the point that he still could fail the mission. He could still die. This is not a guaranteed win for him, so maybe it’s not all that bad of an idea for the Demolition Woman to reach some type of acceptance…
The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You: Back to the story. The last song was more just about emotions and how everyone is feeling and how things are going up in Heaven but now we’re getting back into the plot, shortly after the Demolition Man has escaped prison and checked into a hotel somewhere, called the hotel Bella Muerte (Beautiful Death in original Spanish). This hotel could also be metaphorical… more when we get to that line. The song starts with him missing her and looking at how much longer he has to go before he’ll complete this mission. “Gaze into her killing jar I'd sometimes stare for hours… / And for the last night I lie / Could I lie with you?” (Jetset Life). While he’s missing her, though, he’s also starting to resent her just the tiniest bit for making him (even though she didn’t make him) do all of this miserable awful stuff to get back to her when he doesn’t even know if she still believes in him anymore. “When holding on / Oh, I hope you do the same / Aww, sugar / Slip into the tragedy / You've spun this chamber dry.”
This song is also when the Demolition Man starts turning to drugs to numb the pain of everything going on. “I'm lost in the prescription / …It gives the weak flight / It gives the blind sight / Until the cops come.” His drug use is making him sloppy with his work and it’s almost getting him caught. (Side note, these are probably expensive drugs he’s using. The word Jetset means basically “rich and fancy” and he says the jetset life will kill you, (as drugs can)). This is where the potential metaphor of “Hotel Bella Muerte” comes into play- it’s mentioned right after the “lost in the prescription” line, and “checking into the hotel Beautiful Death” could represent actually dying due to this drug use, or the “beautiful hotel” could represent an altered state of mind. UPDATE/EDIT: i actually just found out that it’s a mental institution (source 89.5 WSOU interview 2003). It could get him caught, it could kill him through an overdose. This metaphor could be continued (well, started) in Prison too, when Bert yells the line “Do you have the keys to the hotel? 'Cause I'm gonna string this motherfucker on fire!” (Prison) it could have meant “are you ready to die?”
Cemetery Drive: So, the Demolition Man is taking a break and recovering from prison. He’s visiting presumably his hometown, feeling lowkey suicidal. “Back home, off the run / Singing songs that make you slit your wrists / It isn't that much fun / Staring down a loaded gun.” (Cemetery Drive).
He then makes the very bad decision to go find his lover’s grave. “This night, walk the dead in a solitary style / And crash the cemetery gates.” (Cemetery Drive). He starts getting really sad because of this and starts reminiscing and just talking about how much he misses the woman, i think most of this song is a flashback. “I miss you / I miss you, so far / And the collision of your kiss / That made it so hard.” (Cemetery Drive). He also has another one of those moments of “is it worth it?” when he says “So, I won't stop dying, won't stop lying / If you want, I'll keep on crying / Did you get what you deserve? / Is this what you always want me for?” (Cemetery Drive). The rest of the song is very repetitive, but the line “way down” is repeated many many times. It could be talking about hell, it could be talking about the woman under the ground, it could be talking about this “fall” he’s constantly afraid of, it could be anything, really. The main important part of this song is that it leads to another change in identity: in religion.
Thank You For The Venom: This is when things mentally really start to go downhill for the Demolition Lover. He has just visited his dead lover’s grave, he’s by himself, and this is when he decides, ultimately: Fuck God. He’s given up on religion. He knows it’s real, because he’s literally on a quest from Satan himself, but he has no faith in it anymore. “Sister, I'm not much a poet, but a criminal / And you never had a chance / Love it, or leave it, you can't understand / …Preach all you want but who's gonna save me? / I keep a gun on the book you gave me, hallelujah, lock and load” (Venom).
I think maybe a nun has tried to “save” him; he could also be talking about religious people in general, but for story’s sake we’ll say a nun tried to “save” him. We know he’s had religious beliefs in the past, like when he says he was how God made him, or when he prayed to the angels to protect his lover, but he’s done. He’s like, “fuck God, fuck religion, fuck this nun.” (He does end up killing the nun: “Love is the red of the rose on your coffin door / What's life like, bleeding on the floor?”) He really doesn't care at all if people know about this aversion to religion: “I wear this on my sleeve / Give me a reason to believe.” He even contradicts his line from earlier in the album: “We’re just two men as God had made us” (Prison), with “I'm just the way that the doctor made me.” (Venom).
His drug use has gotten worse since Jetset Life: “So give me all your poison / And give me all your pills / And give me all your hopeless hearts / And make me ill.” (Venom). And the man still thinks he’s untouchable too, whether that means they can't convert him or he can’t be stopped in his mission or both. “You're running after something / That you'll never kill / If this is what you want / Then fire at will.” (Venom) This is also where he really starts to not give a shit if he even finishes out the mission: he’s like, fine, kill me, I don’t even know if this is worth it anyway. This attitude only gets stronger in our next track: Hang Em’ High.
Hang Em’ High: The Demolition Lover, with this new “Fuck It” mindset, is now picking up speed on his killing spree, barely caring if he gets killed himself in the process. This entire song is basically about him hunting down the men on the list and killing like a machine, a ruthless rampage that takes on the sound of an old western. “Grab your six-gun from your back / Throttle the ignition / Would I die for you? / Well, here's your answer in spades / Shotgun sinners / Wild-eyed jokers / Got you in my sights / Gun it while I'm holding on.” (Hang Em’ High). You can note the tone of resentment toward the Demolition Woman as well. There’s sort of been this underlying question of “will she still love me after what I’ve done?” and this song really hits the point of “I don’t care what she thinks I’m doing it the fuck anyway.” He’s real sarcastic about it too, but that’s nothing new: “After all is said and done / Climb out from the pine box / Well, I'm asking you / 'Cause she's got nothing to say / …She won't stop me, put it down / So get your gun and meet me by the door.” (Hang em’ High.) This song is also where that theme of “falling” comes again. In this song, he sort of says “If I die, I die, and we’ll both move on.” “If I fall and don't look back / Oh, baby, don't stop / Bury me and fade to black.” (Hang em’ High). This is very different from The Ghost of You, where he’s a little more afraid of this “fall.” It’s really better explained in the tone of the song. In The Ghost of You, the line about falling is very isolated, warningly ominous, and is followed by a heavy chorus of basically just wailing, so it seems like a big fear of his. In Hang ‘Em High, the “fall” is much more casually mentioned and is followed by “don’t stop and bury me,” AKA, “get over it.”
It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A (Fucking) Deathwish: This song is very important to the story because it exhibits a large change in character. This song is about the Demolition Man hunting down one or more of the people who murdered him. “For what you did to me / And what I'll do to you / You get, what everyone else gets / You get a lifetime / …I'm coming back from the dead / And I'll take you home with me / I'm taking back the life you stole / …I will avenge my ghost with every breath I take / …This hole that you put me in / Wasn't deep enough / And I'm climbing out right now / You’re running out of places to hide from me.” (Fashion Statement).
This song contains a very crucial part in the album. This is the song where he fully accepts that he may fail his mission by dying. In Ghost of You it was his greatest fear, in Hang Em’ High it was maybe-a-thing-that-could-happen-but-I’m-not-going-to-think-about-it-right-now-just-gonna -kill-a-bunch-of-people. In this song, he knows it’s possible. He’s reached full acceptance that he may never see his lover again. This, right here, is one of the most important lines in the album: “I lost my fear of falling.” (Fashion Statement)
Obviously, he’s going to keep trying, though. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still very determined to be with the woman again, but he’s setting his bar realistically in that he may not make it. “If living was the hardest part / We'll then one day be together / …When you go / Just know that I will remember you / I lost my fear of falling / I will be with you, I will be with you.”
And thus, with his determination and preparation in his mind, we arrive at the finale.
I Never Told You What I Do For A Living:
This is the last song in the story of the Demolition Lovers. The Demolition has almost made it to the end of the mission, and he is absolutely ready to kill the last person and see his lover again. “Another night and I'll see you / Another night and I'll be you.” (Never Told You). He is going down the list, going on this rampant spree trying to hunt down the last men on the list. “Another knife in my hands /…I keep a book of the names and those / Only go so far 'til you bury them / So deep and down we go.” (Never Told You).
The only thing he’s worried about is if, one: the woman will still love him after what he’s done, and two: how he’ll deal with the guilt. He’s hoping getting into heaven and seeing the woman will cleanse him of his sins: “Another knife in my hands / A stain that never comes off the sheets / Clean me off / I'm so dirty babe / The kind of dirty where the water never cleans off the clothes
/…Touched by angels, though I fall out of grace / I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day.” (Never Told You). The first five stanzas are about the “seeing the woman will cleanse him” thing. The rest is about his guilt. If he’ll think about it day after day once he’s in heaven, and if he’s ruined his chance at religion because he’s fallen “out of grace.” The part about the woman not loving him anymore is a valid concern, really. I mean, think about it. He’s not the same guy anymore. He has killed one thousand people. That’s too large of a number for us to even comprehend in this context, but try. That shit would change you, for sure.
We have another chorus, after which he simply says the word “down,” which I have to assume means he has just killed the 999th person.
And here’s where everything falls apart.
The devil has just told the Demolition Man that the last evil man he must kill is himself.
He’s been hunting down man after man making kill after kill for at least a year in completely dismal conditions, dirtying his conscience and completely uprooting his life and mind as he knows it. He’s suffered through this all just to get back to the Demolition Woman… and now he can’t. It was all for nothing.
“And we all fall down / I tried /I tried.”
I strongly suggest you actually listen to this part, because just the quote definitely does not get the tone across. It’s at about 1:40 in the song. Gerard is screaming and wailing, really capturing the anguish that his character is feeling, knowing his work was for nothing and knowing that he’ll never see the Demolition Woman again.
However, he does accept this fate.
“And we'll all dance alone to the tune of your death / We'll love again, we'll laugh again / and it's better off this way.” (Never Told You)
Those worries of guilt, the worries that he’s changed too much as a person, the worries that the woman won’t love him anymore, are released. The fact that he says “we’ll all” instead of just “I’ll” is really interesting. He does it in other places throughout the song as well. I have to assume he’s referring to the other 999 people he’s killed, which is a very cool image, all of these people that have died because the Demolition Woman has died, the man soon to join them. It’s an image Gerard creates in the third album as well, an army of ghosts rallying for a final hurrah: “We're damned after all / Through fortune and flame we fall.” (Mama).
He says it’s “better off this way” which is an interesting choice in wording because it’s the same phrase he uses in I’m Not Okay (I Promise), which is not a song I’ve talked about yet. “I never want to let you down / Or have you go, it's better off this way.” (I’m Not Okay).
The second stanza I suppose means that they’ll move on. They’ll learn to “live” without each other in the afterlife.
However, this acceptance comes very quickly after the breakdown, which implies that it was sort of that “quick fix reasoning” we tend to do- something bad happens and we instantly try to reassure ourselves that it’s going to be okay by conjuring up the first solution or remedy we can think of.
I can infer this because the Demolition Man starts reminiscing about the day they were shot, repeating these lines: “And never again, and never again / They gave us two shots to the back of the head / And we're all dead now,” twice, increasing in desperation and emotion the second time around, and then he starts wailing again. “Well I tried / One more night / One more night / Well I'm laughin' out, cryin' out, laughin' out loud / I tried, well I tried, well I tried / 'Cause I tried, but I lied.” (Never Told You)
He’s losing his mind. He’s freaking the fuck out, the whole impact of what has happened is hitting him, and he’s no longer trying to quickly reassure himself, but just insisting that he “tried” over and over again, even to the point of laughing, he’s so far out of it. He just keeps saying “One more night,” knowing he was that close to seeing the woman again.
He repeats “I tried” a few more times, and then he tries to assure himself again with the lines about it being “better off.” He’s jumping back and forth, his touch on what he knows loosening. He does understand one thing, though. This guilt will haunt him, Demolition Woman or not. “And it's better off this way / So much better off this way / I can't clean the blood off the sheets in my bed!” (Never Told You.) I feel like it’s important to note that during these shifts in thoughts, Gerard switches between more calmly singing and completely screaming which probably accurately represents this complete breakdown the Demolition Man is having.
The song ends with a final reminiscence of the night of the Demolition Lovers’ death, as the Demolition Man does what the devil has asked of him and joins his list of the dead.
“And never again, and never again / They gave us two shots to the back of the head / And we're all… dead… now.”
***
The End? Not quite. You may have noticed that I’ve neglected I’m Not Okay (I Promise), Helena, and the bonus tracks from the live recording collection: Life on the Murder Scene.
Helena: Helena was written following the death of the Grandmother of Gerard and Mikey Way (Bassist). Gerard has described this song as “an angry, open letter to himself.” The lyrics are more than anything about the Ways’ Grandmother, Elena, than the story, but if we must find a way to connect it, I believe it would be from the Demolition Woman’s perspective (It could also be about what the Demolition Man thinks the woman is thinking). “What's the worst that I can say? / Things are better if I stay / So long and goodnight / …Well, if you carry on this way / Things are better if I stay / So long and goodnight/” (Helena). This can be the Demolition Woman saying she’s better off in heaven after she’s seen what the Demolition Man has done and who he’s become.
The whole song is about grief, which means it could take place pretty much anywhere in the timeline, that is, if the song fits with the story at all.
I’m Not Okay (I Promise): I’m pretty sure this song takes place before they die. I think it’s about both of them having some mental health issues and problems with each other, which means their relationship was a little rocky. Don’t get me wrong, they were still totally in love with each other, I mean, obviously, he killed 1000 men for her, but they had some issues. This can also be concluded from some lines in Demolition Lovers: “And after all the things we put each other through…” (Demolition Lovers). It’s largely unimportant, I think. The lyrics are not really of substance, except that neither of them are okay and they kind of fought sometimes, but they won’t break up because being a little bit unhappy with each other is better than not being with each other at all: ““I never want to let you down / Or have you go, it's better off this way.” (I’m Not Okay). That’s about all I could take away from this track.
Desert Song: One of the two bonus tracks from this album, found on the live recording collection Life on the Murder Scene. I’m not gonna lie, the analysis of this song is very simple: We died, that’s sad, I miss you.
It’s pretty much the entire story’s plot (feelings-wise) in one song. There’s an allusion to I Never Told You What I Do For a Living: “And did you come to stare or wash away the blood?” (Like the line “Clean me off / I'm so dirty babe / The kind of dirty where the water never cleans off the clothes” (Never Told You)). It details the journey of their bodies: “From the earth to the morgue /
Morgue, morgue, morgue!” (Desert Song) and talks about the woman living in heaven or mourning him or both: “Spend the rest of your days rockin' out / Just for the dead.” It’s not a very eventful song, and I have to assume that much of it is written about Gerard Way’s real life more than the Demolition Lovers.
Bury Me in Black: My personal favorite. Also found on Life on the Murder Scene, this song has got to be the angriest on the album.
There’s proof that it could be directed toward the Demolition Woman, and theories that it could be directed toward the devil, but I think it’s both. It takes place sometime during his mission, I assume around the 400 mark where he’s probably extremely fed up with this mission and just angry as hell. “I wanna see what your insides look like (I wanna see what your insides look like)/ I bet you're not fucking pretty on the inside (not so pretty) / I wanna see what your insides look like (not so pretty, baby)” (Bury Me in Black). Yeah, he’s mad. He’s extremely violent, either toward his lover or toward the devil, we don’t know. But he’s been killing for so long now that violence is all he knows…
There’s some maybe-proof that it’s toward the woman: “I said, ‘We'll drown ourselves in misery tonight’ / White lies, you've worn out all your dancing shoes this time,” which I think is bitterness that the woman is in heaven. He’s completely miserable, and he wants her to be miserable too, not having fun in paradise.
The part that makes me think it’s the devil is here: “I've been calling you all week for my
Shotgun / Pick up the phone / Pick up the phone, fucker.” He has to be in some sort of communication with the devil to let him know what’s going on, which makes me think he doesn’t have the materials or information he needs, which is halting his mission, AKA frustrating him enough that he wants to literally gut Satan.
This is also another look at just how miserable he is. He’s drinking to numb the pain: “These eyes have had too much to drink again tonight,” He’s feeling suicidal: ‘Black skies, we'll douse ourselves in high explosive light,” He’s physically injured from fights: “And well, I can't explain / What happened to my face / Late last night,” He’s homeless: “I sleep in empty pools, and vacant alleyways,” and he’s having a sexuality crisis: “And what I'm going through / Shot lip gloss through my veins.” (Bury Me in Black). It is another song that fits pretty much anywhere in the timeline.
The End: Thank you for reading this stupid bullshit if you made it this far. Yes, I wrote all of this and if you are for some reason crazy enough to use it for anything please credit me; I spent far too long working on this to get robbed. It is December 25, 2022, 12:52 am, thus concluding my first completed masterdoc: The Story Behind My Chemical Romance’s: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Thanks for reading.
