anonymous
2007-01-06 19:24:39
"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, will you be the saviour 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."
What intrigues me is the fact that on one hand the father is asking him to be a hero:
be the "saviour", defeat your "demons" -vices and logical contradictions, that's to say, misunderstandings of reality which make us do stupidities- and all the "non believers" (quite intriguing in the way it is said... leaves me with several doubts and even fears).
And on the other he is saying that he will give him help to understand how to pass away (the ghost thing).
This part is quite contradictory with common logic schemes. But, if we think that they may be seeing death as something good, then all may make some sense.
The problem with this hypothesis is that he also mentions "summer". Summer is generally understood as a good thing, and so they would be portraying the black parade as something fantastic, something that continues to the summer.
Then the ghost is experience and advice. But the problem is, once more, is it that death is fantastic? Or is it that they break our schemes once more and so say that death is what logically follows life (which is "summer", wonderful)? Is it that we are condemned to be eternally happy at the beginning and then stop being so?
"Sometimes I get the feeling she's watching over me.
And other times I feel like I should go. Through it all, the rise and fall, the bodies in the streets.
When you're gone we want you all to know We'll Carry on,
We'll Carry on
Though your dead and gone believe me Your memory will carry on
Carry on
We'll carry on
And in my heart I can't contain it
The anthem won't explain it."
Who is she? The widow (and so the singer's mother)? His girlfriend?
The problem is that she sounds more like a supernatural being rather than a common one. Is it that she's the Virgin Mary?
"I feel like I should go", well, killing himself, that does not need that much of an interpretation.
The problem is the present contradiction: If life's summer, why does he need that care from that feminine figure, and even better, why is it that there are bodies in the street (and all this not taking his suicidal tendencies into account)?
Life is hard but at the same time summer? If we now take the video into account, we see that life is painful. "Starved to death in a land of plenty" together with the "bodies in the streets" make us think that calling life "summer" is rather a sarcasm. Life is not summer, we/they all act as if it were, but life is painful. Why? Because of us. We make life painful.
However, even though we are the ones who make it painful, we cannot change it (and so the suicidal part would make sense).
That would make "them" the guilty ones rather than "we" (and what distinguishes both groups is this superior knowledge of life).
The problem is that he also tells dad not to worry, as his "memory" will "carry on". This makes us re-think the "black parade" symbol. It may not be death/afterlife, but rather a metaphorical death/end of existance.
The problem is, once more, why is ending existance (which is the only way in which suicidal tendencies could be some way justified, as we stop existing, we stop feeling pain) that good?
Of course, that would justify the "summer" - "black parade" passage. Life is summer, and the logical end of summer is eternal sleep. The problem is that summer has then got a double meaning: life is essentially fantastic while we all (more precisely, "they")make it a painful place experience.
Logically, this leaves the supernatural feminine figure lacking an explanation.
"And we will send you reeling from decimated dreams
Your misery and hate will kill us all
So paint it black and take it back
Lets shout it loud and clear
Do you fight it to the end
We hear the call to
To carry on
We'll carry on
Though your dead and gone believe me Your memory will carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated You're weary widow marches on"
Well, this part quite proves my "they" are ruining our only opportunity to dream, to be happy.
An interesting doubt: why is dying wrong here ("your misery and hate will kill us all") while it was right before?
"And on we carry through the fears
Ooh oh ohhhh
Disappointed faces of your peers Ooh oh ohhhh
Take a look at me cause
I could not care at all Do or die
You'll never make me
Cause the world, will never take my heart
You can try, you'll never break me"
He will stay strong against "them" ("the world") and their wishes to oppress him as well.
"Will never take my heart", so heartless is what they want us all to be.
"Want it all,
I'm gonna play this part
Wont explain or say I'm sorry
I'm not ashamed,
I'm gonna show my scar
You're the chair, for all the broken Listen here, because it's only..
I'm just a man,
I'm not a hero
Just a boy, who's meant to sing this song
Just a man,
I'm not a hero
I -- don't -- care"
On one hand, "you are the chair for all the broken" (you = his father?), and so they can stop running (fighting) against life, so they can feel relief once and for all, and on the other, he is telling his father that he cannot be the hero, the saviour he wanted him to be.
Meanwhile, even though he said all what he said, he says he's apathetic ("I don't care").
"Carry on
We'll carry on
Though your dead and gone believe me Your memory will carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated Your weary widow marches on
We'll carry on
We'll carry on
We'll carry on
We'll carry
We'll carry on"
Well, this confirms what I say. "Though you are dead and gone" makes us think of death as unexistance and of the black parade as a synonim of it.
His father is therefore logically "broken and defeated" because he did not manage to change things when he could.
Well, that supernatural figure appears to be the widow -who keeps on with her husband's struggle-, but the way in which she's mentioned here is not the way in which he was before, and so I feel a lack of coherence between the first female figure and the widow.
About the father being part of the armed forces, I am somewhat for but my intuition puts me fully against it.
As hard as it may seem after all this huge analysis, this song still makes me feel somewhat great (while I am currently suffering my lack of faith, and so I am trying to grip to sure existance, to this life, I have as much as I can).
Top Rated Interpretation