I’ve wanted to write about this song, since I first heard it. Yes what I’m about to write is super subjective, and it may not be what anyone else thinks the song is about but fuck it, this is my blog and I can write what I want.
Now that’s off my chest, let me say why I want to write about this song. This post is going to be formatted a bit different than the last one. I’ve memorized the song, it’s kinda one of my anthems, and it makes me feel better on a bad day. Oh, and here’s a link if you want to listen to the song yourself.
One more thing, all the stuff I post in this series belongs to the various artists and their recording labels. I don’t intend to profit from any of this. That was mostly for YouTube and any jerks who try to say I’m using this stuff illegally.
Right where was I? Oh right the song. I think this song is about mental illness. I have no idea what the boys meant this song to be about, and most people have their own interpretation. As I’ve said before, I have depression and I struggle with anxiety; this song is me in a nutshell, not all of it, but most of it.
I don’t where you’re going but do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I can’t count how many times I’ve felt lonely and depressed, but I don’t want to be alone. Most days it’s easy to just pick up the phone or open a chat and ask if anyone wants to hang out. That first line is, there’s just so much to unpack. It describes me on days where I want to be by myself but not entirely. We all have those days where we say, screw the world and all the people in it, even the people I like. We all need time to decompress, to take a minute for ourselves. We also have days where we feel so stressed, anxious and irritable that we hate everyone but we want to be around people in some capacity. Oh wait that’s just me. It’s hard to describe this feeling so let’s just come back to this part later.
I don’t where I’m going but I don’t think I’m coming home, and I said, I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead, this is the road to ruin, and we’re starting at the end.
Let’s go line by line here. I’ll try to be brief. I don’t where I’m going but I don’t think I’m coming home. This part to me means hey I’m going somewhere not sure if I’ll be back anytime soon. It doesn’t mean anything bad, per se. It’s what they put in next that makes for a darker turn. I said I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead; I mentioned in my last post that I’ve struggled with suicidal thoughts before, this line says to me, I may have be headed for a crappy night, day, whatever, but I’ll make sure to check with the people I care about if I come out the other side.
Let’s hit pause for a moment. People that care about me read this blog. I am not saying I’m having any issues right now or have had them recently. I am okay, this is just a song and while it has a ton of meaning to me; I don’t need to go see a therapist asap.Okay hit resume track, er blog rather.
This is the road to ruin, and we’re starting at the end.
This line puzzles me. Does starting at the end mean I start with how I felt at the end of things the last time I was depressed? What is the road to ruin? I’ve often said I’ve been to hell and back I guess this road could be similar.
Let’s be alone together, we can stay young forever, screaming at the top of our lungs
It’s an odd phrase, to me it means that I want to be by myself, but I also don’t want to be by myself. It’s this odd indescribable feeling of wanting to observe the world around me without having to interact with the people in it. The best example I can think comes from earlier in my day today. I was eating lunch at a cafe here in town. It was prime lunchtime, so it’s hard not people’s conversations when the place is busy and all the tables are full.
I observed the people next to me, from their appearance they looked like young working professionals. From their conversation I gleaned the woman worked in the medical profession, not sure about her friend. She was telling her friend about a doctor who was older and unfamiliar with technology and how she helped them to learn something new. The doctor was delighted and proceeded to embrace this newfound technological freedom with zeal. Now they feel the need to tell said woman every thing they’ve learned on their ipad, or the smart TV (in relation to medicine mind you.) This surprised the woman and the man said they’d found older people reacted the way his friend described; or they refused to learn anything and won’t touch any new tech stuff, who needs it?
The man was one of those that logs every meal and snack they have, don’t know if they were trying to lose weight or what, but I’m sure he had his reasons. I’m telling you this, not to make these two strangers feel uncomfortable (not they will ever read this blog, but if they stumble across it, oh well) but to make a point. Yes I was kind of eavesdropping, you don’t like it too bad. I don’t make a habit of it.
The point is, I feel less alone when I’m with total strangers sometimes. I like the feeling of being in a crowded place with like minded individuals. It’s why I like going to concerts, we’re all there to see the band or musician. We all like them and are pumped to see what songs they’ll play. There’s a general feeling of anticipation, happiness and excitement. Sure, some of these feelings may be due to the amount of alcohol consumed, but that’s beside the point.
You might think, wait but you’re not alone in these situations, you’re with people, and maybe you make a new friend or two. Then again maybe you never see or talk to these people again. The thing about the line, let’s be alone together is this feeling of something intangible. I tried to describe it the best I could but ask me to clarify it more and it would fall apart. The closest I can come is that I feel less alone even when I am, but not so much when I’m in a crowd of people.
we can stay young forever, screaming at the top of our lungs yeah yeah.
This line speaks about longing for a different time in life. A time when we’re younger and screaming and don’t care what anyone thinks of us. We want to keep this feeling around as long as possible. Despite all the setbacks of being young, the hard scrabble-ness of it all, it was fun while it lasted. I too, yearn for my college days when I could hang out with friends and not have to get up at 7 the next morning if I didn’t want to.
Cut me off I’ve lost my track, it’s not my fault I’m a maniac, it’s not funny, anymore it’s not. my heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it’s broken, do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna, yeah.
To me this means I’ve lost my way somehow, that I’m struggling with something. Whatever it may be it’s causing me anxiety, stress and occasionally sadness or depression. The not funny part is someone saying, “Hey cheer up this will pass.” Don’t say that phrase to someone who’s depressed. I get they come from a place of love and compassion, and you want the person to feel better. Thing is, a depressive episode may pass, a situation may become better or a person, but mental illness is a forever thing. You never get away from the little voice in your head. It’s like telling a person with cancer, you’ll beat this. They may, the cancer may go into remission for a long time, but there’s always a chance it can come back. Better example someone with a chronic illness is bitching about how the illness is screwing up their day. You say something stupid like oh I get how you feel I had x thing happen to me, that’s the same thing right? We’ve all done this, but first, apologize for saying that (most people do I get that) and second, see above for why that’s a horrible thing to say.
My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it’s broken, do you wanna feel beautiful, do you wanna, yeah.
This part is pretty obvious. I don’t mean my actual heart that would be problematic. Emotionally though, there are times when I’ve felt like people seem to like me more when I’m bitching about something; well no one likes that. I mean that I feel like my life is boring, so if something bad is happening my life is more interesting, I have more to write about.
Writing can come from a happy place too, but think about this. What are your favorite songs, movies or memories? They come from a place of strong emotion. For me most of those strong feelings come from a place of darkness. This isn’t a bad thing, at least not to me. Some of my best ideas and writing come from a depressed place. The trick is getting yourself out of that place once you’ve used it constructively.
I’m outside the door, let me in, so we can back and play pretend, I’m on deck yeah I’m up next, tonight I’m high as a private jet yeah.
This verse evokes a feeling of wanting to go back to a simpler time or at least an easier one. I think the singer is trying to say I want to go back to when this was easy and I didn’t have to think about where we were going as a group. He wanted to strike out on his own and it worked out okay but he’s yearning for the old days when he still had his buddies and his band and they were on top of the world.
I get it, maybe a bit too much. Some days I want to be back in college hanging out with my friends and watching TV. Or we’re playing on my Wii and I’m losing horribly. For those that care we mostly played one of those Rabbids party games. I was never great at them but it was fun to try and it was fun to play them as a group. I feel like the idea here is yearning for a time when your core group hasn’t changed and become different people. Sometimes friends (and musicians) grow apart, other times they go their separate ways but come back together again. Thank God they did, otherwise this post would be awkward as hell.
This is a super short song, at least in terms of different lyrics. Dunno what my word count is, but you’re probably sick of reading this by now so go forth and share this (or don’t if you hated it) and maybe I’ll get some more people who pretend to like me. Um I mean, more readers and followers, yeah that’s what I meant.
*I tried to smash together how I feel about this song and a song dissection into one blog post. Let me know if this worked, and please let me know if it didn’t. I won’t be offended either way, and this is all new to me. I’ve written short stories(mostly fiction) and I’ve blogged before but I try to be less verbose in the blogging department. Some days I fail miserably and I feel like this is one of those times. If you feel differently, great! If you don’t that’s fine. I will pick a longer song for my next post I just kinda needed to get this one off of my chest and out into the world. This is me, saying hey world I wrote something, hope someone out there, somewhere can relate and maybe even someone likes it that isn’t my mom or my boyfriend.
Bitey Mad Lady 