What does Miss Murder mean?

AFI: Miss Murder Meaning

Album cover for Miss Murder album cover

Song Released: 2006


Miss Murder Lyrics

Hey Miss Murder can I?
Hey Miss Murder can I?
Make beauty stay if I,
Take my life?

Whoa-oh-ohh

With just a look they shook
And heavens bowed before him.
Simply a look can break your heart.
The stars that pierce the sky;
He left them...

  1. anonymous
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    Jul 13th 2008 !⃝

    Ok you are all retarded...some of them I can see because liek the biblical stuff fits and all, and I'm a Christian but honestly, ''miss murder'' not the song, the phrase (yes there is a phrase) means 'vanity'. do you know what vanity is??? =P its being cocky and arrogant. ''miss murder'' is a phrase that literally means that.

    "We're left to wonder why...he left us all...behind" possibly a previous friend who did something and everyone thought it was really great and he became popular and the narrator is just like ''wtf?! I'm your friend and you just left me?????'' so yea...''with just a look, he shook'' the old friend looks at the narrator and shudders because he realizes that he's left him but hasn't done anything about it.

    ''and heavens bowed b4 him'' --his new popularity

    ''hey miss murder (vanity) can i, make beauty (the old friend) stay if i, take my life...'' hed give anything to be with his old friend again and he wants his friend back.

    and a lot of the bridge is like...we try to get his old friend back, but the old friends new friends won't even let the narrator near them because theyre like...shunned

  2. slaveoffi
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    Jun 14th 2008 !⃝

    You know what, maybe they just choose lyrics out of a hat. That's what it seems like to me. I mean, does EVERYTHING have to have a deep hidden meaning? I think it would be really hard for them to come up with meanings as deep and obscure as what some of you are suggesting. I do think the Lucifer idea was kind of cool, but where does the "Miss Murder" part come in (emphasis on the MISS)?

  3. anonymous
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    Jun 11th 2008 !⃝

    I think it's about Hitler. It's about how Hitler made all these people believe he was this some kind of good person then the public found out what he was doing to the jews and then he killed himself. We're left to wonder why he left us all behind... The nice Hitler left them all behind and this new horrible person took his place

  4. diewithyou
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    Jun 6th 2008 !⃝

    It means suicide duh! Get it right.

  5. anonymous
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    May 31st 2008 !⃝

    I don't know if you guys have seen the video, but if you watch it, you'll notice that he's looking in a mirror for the first verse (and ending), so I think that the song was spoken in the third-person, because he says "heavens bowed before him" and "his crash" and such, these are all things that he used to be to a girl. also, in the video you can see that it's a speech to a following, which I believe symbolizes the fact that he's telling them not to make his mistakes.. I think that really he's asking this girl to let him kill himself because he let her down. (which would explain:
    "The stars that mystify, [that pierce the sky], and [and how his children cry] he left us all behind) also the fact that he said:
    "that the ghost you love, your ray of light will fizzle out without hope" also carries the same meaning. and the metaphor
    "were the empty set just floating through wrapped in skin" is saying that they are just walking abandonment (empty set) and "ever searching for what we were promised" means that they made promises to each other but didn't keep them. and I'm not sure, but the golden ring may be the relationship they used to have, but they'd tainted their hands and they were to filthy to touch it now, meaning that they could never go back to the way they were.

  6. anonymous
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    May 12th 2008 !⃝

    The general idea of this song I think is more comparable to the portrait of Dorian gray asking if he can trade his life (in a sense his soul) for "perfection" and movie star looks but through it all he realized it even tainted him further making his goal even more unrealistic the allusion to the golden ring is just a visualization of that

  7. anonymous
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    Apr 25th 2008 !⃝

    Now that everyone mentions it the Hitler idea fits well. I just thought it was about a murderer who was going to kill someone the singer cared about so he was giving his life in place.

  8. anonymous
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    Apr 21st 2008 !⃝

    It's about Jesus, Hitler, and many other things. Essentially Hitler saw himself as the savior of the German people, much as Jesus was said to have seen himself as the savior of the Judaen people. There are very strong elements of religion in contemporaneous German art, in the ceremonies instituted by the national socialists, and even in the name they chose (third -Reich-, after the "Holy Roman Empire" of old).

    The "golden ring" that we would never let go could easily be a reference to the ring in the saga of the Niebelungenlied, a symbol in pagan Germanic myth for the destiny of the German peoples and their place as favored of the gods.

    Of course you'll agree that the Nazis should not have been able to "lay their filthy hands upon" the greatest secrets of the universe, but who among us truly would be worthy?

    Miss Murder could be Kali, mistress of death and also of rebirth and reincarnation. I've read that suicides were held by some ancient traditions to be bound to the earth, forced to be reborn (seek to lose your life and gain it??).

    "Empty set" is a mathematical concept. It would be used, for example, to answer the problem, "list all values of x for which x = x+1". The empty set is not "zero" or "nothing" in the common use of the word. To butcher a zen koan, "Once a student asked his master, 'Sir, what is it like to attain Buddhahood?' His master shouted, 'The empty set!'"

    That said, perhaps a better question to ask than "What does this song objectively mean?" is "What can I subjectively learn from experiencing this song??

  9. anonymous
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    Apr 8th 2008 !⃝

    I'm not really sure what it's about. I think it could be based on Hitler but not exactly him and not praising him. I know a lot of people are saying the Jesus and it kinda fits with the lyrics but I don't think it fits with the tempo of the song or the video,. Actually not really the lyrics either. I would either go with the Hitler Theory, The Lucifer Theory, or maybe it is just purely metaphorical. We can't really determine it because we didn't write it.

  10. anonymous
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    Feb 16th 2008 !⃝

    Plain and simple I think this song is about giving you life for what you love most

  11. anonymous
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    Jan 28th 2008 !⃝

    I think this song is generally about not wanting to age. Losing your youthful beauty for age.

    In some twisted way, Davey is asking,"If I were to kill myself, would my beauty stay forever?" In death your body doesn't really change except in the time of decay but he is looking at it in a different way. "I don't have to see myself grow old." or "I won't have to experience it."

  12. anonymous
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    Nov 18th 2007 !⃝

    Someone told me this song is about Hitler....

  13. anonymous
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    Oct 21st 2007 !⃝

    I think that this song doesn't make any sense at all. Do you honestly think that AFI thought up some crazy meaning of this song and then based the lyrics around that. Nope. They said "Let's get a catchy chorus, and have it make no sense and then all of our fans will debate what it means when we don't even know what it means in the first place!"

  14. anonymous
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    Oct 21st 2007 !⃝

    . Just saying: It's about how a woman decided to leave him behind (not sure why it's 'us') Anyway, since she left the character behind, she killed him internally. Broken heart, possibly trauma...
    anyway, the hook, the twist is that she murdered him when she left (hence she's Miss Murder). He did not kill himself, she did. He's saying that: because she left him he killed himself (on the inside), and he blames the murder on her.

    Hope I nailed it!

  15. anonymous
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    Oct 5th 2007 !⃝

    Davey is asking miss murder (in this instance, the symbol he uses for death/suicide) if he kills himself, will he become more famous? will the memory of him be beautiful? mournful? with just a look they shook and heavens bowed before him: he looks at his 'people' once, and they shake with love and adoration for him- even the heavens bow before him, he is so Great. not clear on the 'simply a look can break your heart' part, possibly their hearts ache with such love for him? the stars that pierced the sky, he left them all behind: he leaves everything- the world, his people, the heavens (stars) were left to wonder why he left them all behind: why would someone so famous, so adored kill himself??? did he not already have everything he could ever want?? miss murder, can I make beauty stay if I take my life?: if I kill myself now, and leave all of these people that adore me so much devastated, will they remember me longer?? will the memory be more beautiful? dreams of his crash won't pass oh how they all adored him: his subjects dream of his death- they loved him so! beauty will last when spiraled down: his beauty will last forever when his own facial beauty rots. but I have to go home so I shall finish this another day.... until then, hasta luego.




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