Fall Out Boy - This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race Song Meanings
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Lyrics:
I am an arms dealer
Fitting you with weapons in the form of words
And don't really care, which side wins
As long as the room keeps singing...
See the rest of these lyrics
This Aint A Scene Its An Arms Race Lyrics on KOvideo
 Top Rated Interpretation
anonymous
February 21st, 2007 04:25PM
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(You need to watch the video to understand some of this song, but this is about the video so watch it!) This song is about a lot of things, both a response from fans and the look on the scence of music. First we see the band finishing one of thier songs and they stop and walk through the crowd. The "fans" are all made of cardboard. This is their statment on how all their fans said they sold out with their last album, the fans were in fact fake. Then they move to a magazine cover which says that they are breaking into the hip-hop genre. This is a message that is displaying how hard it is for bands to be classified and how they are forced into other genres when there are too many other bands like them, hence the line about the bandwagon being full. Then they are in the recording studio and the people around them are making fun of them, this is about the ridicule from other bands and producers. When the badn goes into full on crazy mode and start dancing, they end up breaking something which I think says how the band is too wild for the genre. There you see a member of the band ready for his photshoot. Another publicity act made by many artists. The photographer has plenty of good cameras there, but instead he chooses a phone. As he asks the person to pose differently, he finally has him take down his pants which the person is hesitant about, but does it anyway. First off, the photographer picking the phone is representing how fans would rather see crappy pictures taken of embarrising things that a person might do than real pictures that the artists try to sell. The whole pants thing is another publicty stunt. When the girls find the picture online they look at it and seem disgusted. All of the partying scenes are again just about things that people will do to get noticed (stuff a sock down thier pants, get pets, etc.). When one of the band memebers gets flipped out the window, you'll notice the flash of a camera which is a statement on how obsessed the press is with getting the latest story. Then we flash to a funeral were we see a band member preaching about how hard everyone tries to make themselves seen (the boy bands always sing about not being loved). We also see some people who resemble the following bands and celebrities: Panic at the Disco, Britney Spears (or another girl similar to her), a person from thier music video Sugar we're going down, the MTV astrounaut, and a rapper. They are all dancing and trying to make themselves clear to the crowd. Finally the person pops out of the coffin and it flashes the the band that looks to be early in their carreer. One asks "dreams again" and that signifies that the the life bands lead can be nightmares, and the video ends with the band prefoming in a small auditorium.
pic3232
December 20th, 2006 12:56PM
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I believe this song is in response to all the people who said that Fall Out Boy sold out with their last album.
anonymous
December 23rd, 2006 07:00PM
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I think it's about record companies who take advantage of bands to make money.
The first verse is about how they race to find the best bands and sign them to their own label before someone else can.
The second verse is about how when the band's popularity starts to wane, they dump them (the bombshells have already sunk) and move onto worse bands. (we're painting your trash gold).
The title line is pretty obvious the meaning: the scene isn't us trying to hit it big, it's the record labels trying to use us to make a buck.
timb89
December 27th, 2006 08:46AM
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its pretty easy this one, I reckon they are saying that their genre watever they classify themselves as has sold out,or they want this to themselves and are sick of people copying them. "Bandwagon's full Please, catch another", pretty simply the "scene" is full, go home.
anonymous
December 30th, 2006 11:42PM
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i think the last one is right. Its an "arms race" because you have to fight to stay in it.
anonymous
January 16th, 2007 10:15AM
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I think it's about how everyone in the scene is accusing each other of being posers and fakes for stupid reasons like happening to sell a lot of records. They try and push you out and it's like a constant battle with everyone trying their hardest to be "true" to the scene which causes a lot of friction because the whole point of being in a scene is people sharing things in common, not desperately trying to stand out and fit in at the same time.
That could be a whole lot clearer but really don't have time to edit it just now!
anonymous
January 26th, 2007 12:07PM
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it has even been -by FOB that it is response to the emo scene
Pete who wrote the song was/is sick of the scene created and with all of the hostility it has created
oldschooljedi314
February 11th, 2007 04:05PM
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This song is about, obviously, the Scene. Most particularly the emo/pop-punk scene. Fall Out Boy was and is a fan band. Fall Out Boy fans are incredibly committed, if they got started when TTTYG came out. They talked up Fall Out Boy, gave it to their friends. Now they are calling them sellouts because of their own actions, selling them to everybody they know. So the line "I am an arms dealer, filling you with weapons in the form of words" makes more sense. But this scene does what it can to make a band popular and then hates them when they do.
anonymous
February 12th, 2007 06:52AM
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I think most of them are right, id just like to add that they make fun of a7x, when pete's on the cascet, with the guitar, go on youtube and type in seize the day music video and you'll see wat I mean
psPatrick2707
February 17th, 2007 05:43PM
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like most FOB songs I couldn't figure this one out until I saw the whole Panic! fiasco everyone was talking about and I listened to it again and realized it all fits.
paniqluv
February 24th, 2007 11:07PM
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DeliBeli, you have it mixed up, Panic! wouldn't exist without Fall Out Boy, not what you said. See: Pete signed them because Ryan sent him demos via Purevolume
anonymous
February 24th, 2007 11:46PM
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interesting..but the camera photo shoot refers to when pictures of petes penis surfaced on the internet last year.
St.J
February 27th, 2007 10:20PM
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"Submitted by: anonymous
Added: 2007-02-04 01:10:49
What is an arms dealer? REALLY? And what is this bandwagon they speak of? A bandwagon can never be full....silly FOB"
An Arms dealer is a guy who sells arms. no not the body part but guns and stuff. as for the bandwagon, there probably talkaing about the bandwagon of the genre or of their band perhaps?
anonymous
February 28th, 2007 10:13AM
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This song is about a really competitive music industry. The arms dealer basically represents the person who writes the music and the lyrics and they just throw all the different bands out there with there "weapons" (word/lies/rumors etc) and who ever wins (record sales) wins and as long as the keep pumping out music, the record labels don't care. Everyone in the song is basically self destructive but no one cares as long as they keep singing and keeping the audience happy. "Bandwagon's full please catch another" is really significant because it basically is saying that no one really thinks for themselves anymore they just form in groups and become exclusive. It's basically just reassuring all the losers who weren't fit enough to survive (social scene, rock scene, whatever scene its up for your interpretation) that whatever you were fighting for, no one really achieved it and it just became a race to defend yourself, not really a race to meet your goal.
anonymous
February 28th, 2007 06:58PM
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yea and there's also Seth Green(another movie star) in the funeral scene. "dreams again?" refers to the bad dreams that Pete Wentz had as a kid. He still thinks about them and wrote a book about them.
anonymous
March 2nd, 2007 08:15PM
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I just watched the music video and I think that they are just all pissed off because they think that everyone is just so obsessed with them being supposedly a "sell out band" or whatever. I think people these days and kids these days just go around thinking that if your punk you can't listen to rap or if you listen to rap you can't listen to rock. I mean everyone just puts up these invisible borders between everyone else and its just all pointless.
anonymous
March 5th, 2007 07:13PM
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The arms dealer reffers to the commercial songwriters, who write songs (weapons) for bands. They don't care which band wins, as long as the crowd sings one of their songs. This basically means labels don't care about bands and their success, as long as one of their bands is scoring hits. It's a statement against commercialization of music.
This ain't a scene (in sense of a group of currently popular artists in a genre, whereas they share the same music, but are also each others competitors). The scene is an arms race because:
1. You have to fight for your place
2. You are under constant attack by other bands, press and even your own fans
3. The bands fight among each other to score hit songs, which is really important for the labels that decide whether you stay on the scene
"I'm a leading man" - he is the lead singer, the one that spreads the weapons / lyrics. The lies he weaves are so intricate (intricate means complex), because most bands want their lyrics to appear as their own / authentic, while they are actually written by others for commercial reasons.
The boys the dance floor didn't love - probably a reference to failed boy-bands, as in these bands it's important to dance in a flashy way. The dance floor didn't love them, means they weren't good enough dancers.
The girls' whose lips couldn't move fast enough - seems to me this one is about lip-syncing, as lip-sync pop-star girls are the female counterpart of the dancing boy band boys. These girls couldn't lip sync well enough, a metaphore for girls who didn't have what it takes to make it as a pop star.
Why do they call these two 'groups' to sing along? The failed boy-band boys and pop star girls are the ones who couldn't make it in the commercial music branche. They know how hard the scene is, therefore they know it's an arm race.
I agree that the video explains a lot of the lyrics, especially FOB's attitude toward fake fans, press and competing bands (Panic).
The song is generally an FU toward the people above, they jokingly admit they are commercial and fake, as FOB has been accused of a lot. They sarcastically admit to all of these, as if they want to say: so what if all that is true? Our music will still sell.
anonymous
March 11th, 2007 04:59PM
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It's a subliminal message to Panic at the Disco. FOB is mad at Panic and are trying to kick them out of the "scene", and the only reason hot topic will not be stocking FOB's new album is because Brendon is having a "secret affair" with the CEO of Hot Topic.
***
Umm.... patd were discovered by pete wentz and are signed with his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance. Soo...you look a bit wrong now
anonymous
March 12th, 2007 08:36PM
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"As much as I love FOB, it's not a subliminal message to Panic! Cuz FOB wouldnt exist if it weren't for Panic!"
Are you serious? I'm pretty sure I went to a show with FOB headlining and Panic! opening. Idiot.
taka
March 31st, 2007 04:30PM
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the last interpretation is the accurate one. just for emos and punk peoples!
anonymous
May 16th, 2007 05:58PM
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DeliBeli you have some stuff mixed up... panic! would not be around if pete, from fall out boy, didn't sign Panic! as a band.... So you are off a little bit
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