My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade in 2006. The concept album tells the story of a terminal man called The Patient. “Welcome To The Black Parade”, which remains the band’s defining song, brings The Patient’s story to its emotional peak.
With Queen-sized ambition, My Chemical Romance recorded an epic tale about death and how humans continue to grapple with their doomed fate. It also describes the desire to be remembered because if we’re not forgotten, then that’s immortality too.
The Patient
“Welcome To The Black Parade” finds the Patient recalling childhood memories as he faces death. But he’s not staring at his past life. Instead, the Patient is shown the afterlife.
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, would you be,
The savior 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.”
The chorus is a kind of farewell. The Patient is dead, but the world continues, and those left behind promise to honor his memory and spirit.
We’ll carry on, we’ll carry on,
And though you’re dead and gone, believe me.
Your memory will carry on.
We’ll carry on,
And in my heart, I can’t contain it,
The anthem won’t explain it.
We Hear the Call
We all exist with death over our shoulders. And here, the Patient has run out of time, though he tries his best to defy the natural order.
A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams,
Your misery and hate will kill us all.
So paint it black and take it back, and let’s shout it loud and clear,
Defiant to the end, we hear the call.
More defiance from the Patient. Though the body may die, his spirit lives on. It echoes humans’ hope that the party continues after death. The survival metaphor can be applied to life’s smaller battles or the greater struggle to endure.
Do or die, you’ll never make me,
Because the world will never take my heart.
Photo by Michael Loccisano/FilmMagic