That’s the writer’s job. The writer collects and creates those moments from out of his own experience and the world he sees around him….and you present those things to your audience, who then experience their own inner vitality, their own centre, their own questions about their own life, and their moral life…. That’s what you’re paid for — somebody says, “Hey, I’m not alone.”1
Sometime in 1985, sitting in his seat (or maybe standing, punching the air) at New Jersey’s Bradenburg Arena, Gerard Way was one of those ‘somebody’s.2 Fifteen years later, following his own apprenticeship of loneliness, introspection and overlong poetry, Way would start getting paid to do the same thing. He would discover, like Springsteen, that it’s not as easy as it looks. It’s hard enough in the rehearsal room, or in some tiny club in front of an audience of your peers. It gets harder when your records start to sell and your audience goes from hundreds, to thousands to hundreds of thousands. Sometime before the recording of The Black Parade, Gerard realised, as Springsteen had realised around the time of Born to Run, that his actions had implications. ‘I’d meet these kids that were outsiders,’ said the singer. ‘And I realised they’re looking to us for the answer. It started to scare me.’3
In the stadium, ideas are amplified along with sounds. And in the same way that you can’t turn the volume up on a record without cracks and pops getting louder too, My Chemical Romance found that as their ideas were broadcast on a larger scale, the flaws and contradictions that had always been there were amplified in proportion. The romantic ideals that drive the band and its music, the things that put the romance in My Chemical Romance, were forced to account for themselves. How can we look death in the face and still say yes to life? How can we reject society without dying of loneliness? And how can we insist on our right to self-expression when the world is falling apart?
Incredibly, the band chose not to pull back from these questions, but to go further into them — to embrace the contradictions at the heart of their songs and the movement those songs had created, and to watch as the consequences played themselves out in the real world. They created a teenage revolution — not a revolution in the name of civil rights, an end to violence, more drugs, less bombs, more fun or free love. Their revolutionary war was waged in the name of loneliness. The members of The Black Parade were standing up — to paraphrase Dostoyevsky — for their own caprices, and for having them guaranteed where necessary. The world was treated to the extraordinary spectacle of thousands of kids demanding the right to be sad. British fans organised a day of action to protest the unfair tactics of the Daily Mail’s counter-offensive strike on sadness. They held up banners saying: ‘We’re not a cult, we’re a fucking army!’4 What were they all doing there? asked one reporter. A fifteen-year-old My Chem fan explained, ‘We’re all alone together.’ At this point, it became Way’s job to show how this mind-boggling idea might work out in practice. He couldn’t be a leader — he couldn’t say to say to his fans ‘it’s ok to be weird and lonely and different to everyone else’ and then deny them their alone-ness. But he couldn’t pretend that what he’d created was of no importance either. He had to honour the movement he’d set in motion, and demonstrate, through his art, how its aims might be accomplished. It might seem like a lot to ask of a rock star — but nobody is better qualified. After all, it was his idea.
It’s tempting to say that the idea of a world where everybody is ‘alone together’ is one that could only have been dreamed up by a teenager. Teenagers, who are selfish, amoral, sentimental, obsessed with childhood, dreams and the significance of their own emotions. Only a teenager could elevate these principles above the sensible, utilitarian ones on which our modern society is based. But all of these things are equally important to the artist. A poet like Springsteen or Gerard Way needs them in order to do his job: ‘to communicate something as essential as bread, yet to be able to do so only from a position of insulation and disaffection.’ When institutions, politicians, society and rational thought itself let the poet down, his faith and creative power can only be restored by returning to the world of childhood, imagination, memory, and emotion — to the small ‘h’ humanity of a lyric like ‘when I was a young boy’. And since the world will not recognise these things, the poet is forced to become a revolutionary. The poet, as Herbert Read writes, ‘is compelled to demand, for poetic reasons that the world be changed. We cannot say it is an unreasonable request: it is the first condition of his existence as a poet.’5
Now, in the twenty-first century, the romantic poet has found new recruits to his cause. Emotional teenagers are the natural allies of the poet. They want the same things — dreams, nostalgia, intense emotions, solitude. They already understand, like the poet, that there is no political party on earth that can guarantee their happiness because they demand a kind of happiness that a society based on production and money doesn’t understand. This is Thomas Carlyle’s ‘passion incapable of being translated into action’. This is passion that can find no useful outlet in society since it refuses to recognise or participate in a society which has proven itself consistently incapable of providing for real human needs. For such individuals, ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ — a song which denounces modern life, asserts the importance of dreams, solitude and emotions, and demands the creation of a new world in which those things are recognised — is a call to arms which cannot be ignored.
‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ is thrilling and irresistible because it dares to imagine that art might change everyday life. Gerard Way could not, in good faith, sing that song unless he believed poetry was that important, that life could be fundamentally altered by a set of words. But the singer believes this because he has to. He believes it because he knows that if it it’s not true, then art is useless. Gerard Way is not just engaging in some scene-politics pissing contest when he says that ‘Emo is a pile of shit’. For Way, emotion is important. The poetry of ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’ takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity, and the poet wants you to feel what he felt when he wrote it. But where, for an emo band, the mission would be accomplished at this point, for Gerard Way it’s just the beginning. He knows that if the process stalls here, the promise of a better world glimpsed in the last thirty seconds of the song will never be more than thirty seconds of noise on the radio. He can’t commit himself to politics, because he’s demanding the kind of freedom no political party on earth can allow. He can’t get bogged down in the kind of Marxist analysis advocated by the post-punk positivists; if he does, the poetry that drives his music will disappear. But he can’t accept the notion that music begins and ends with the sharing of feelings, as though rock and roll were a giant talk show or group therapy session. If art has no power to improve life, then art — as Herbert Read says — will never be anything more than ‘self-expression’.5 Which is another way of saying that until we start taking poets and their irrational demands seriously, everything will be emo.
Notes
Emotional People
1. Jason Pettigrew, ‘Dead to see another day’, Alternative Press, July 2008.
2. Gerard Way, ‘My Chemical Romance brand emo “shit”.’ NME News, nme.com. September 2007.
3. Ronen Kaufmann, ‘Blood Runs Deep’, Alternative Press, July 2008.
4. Tim Karan, ‘Blood Runs Deep’, Alternative Press, July 2008.
5. Andy Greenwald, ‘Emo: We Feel Your Pain’, in Michael Sia (ed.), Spin: 20 Years of Alternative Music, Three Rivers Press, New York.
6. Gwyn Tyme, ‘My Chemical Romance’, Musicpix.net, May 2005.
Buzzcocks
1. Jon Savage, England’s Dreaming, Faber and Faber, London, 1991.
2. Buzzcocks: ‘What do I Get?’, Manchester — So Much to Answer For: The Peel Sessions, Strange Fruit LP, 1990.
3. Annie Zaleski, ‘Blood Runs Deep’, Alternative Press, July 2008.
The Cure
1. Dave Thompson, In Between Days: An Armchair Guide to the Cure, Helter Skelter, London, 2004.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
Weezer
1. Rivers Cuomo, Sleevenotes for Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo, Geffen CD, 2007.
2. Ed Masley, ‘10 Essential “Disappointing Albums”’, Alternative Press, July 2008.
3. Rivers Cuomo, op. cit.
4. Andy Greenwald, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2003.
5. Harry Thomas, ‘Not So Serious Rivers Cuomo’, Rolling Stone, June 2001.
6. Chris Mundy, ‘Weezer’s Cracked Genius’, Rolling Stone, September 2001.
7. Songmeanings.com, 2002.
8. Ibid.
9. Rob Mitchum, ‘Weezer: Make Believe’, album review, Pitchfork.com, May 2005.
The Classics
1. William J. Long, Outlines of English and American Literature, Gutenberg.org
2. Robert Barnard, A Short History of English Literature, B. Blackwell, New York, 1984.
3. Walter Horatio Pater, Essay on Style, Gutenberg.org
Troublemaker
1. Steve Kandell, ‘Heck on Wheels’, Spin, June 2008.
2. Weezer, ‘Troublemaker’, The Red Album, Geffen CD, 2008.
3. Rivers Cuomo, Sleevenotes for Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo, Geffen CD, 2007.
4. Weezer, ‘Dreamin’’, The Red Album, Geffen CD, 2008.
Wordsworth
1. William Wordsworth, ‘Expostulation and Reply’ in Wordsworth, William, Lyrical Ballads, with other poems, (1800 edition) Gutenberg.org
2. William Wordsworth, ‘The Tables Turned’ in Wordsworth, William, Lyrical Ballads, with other poems, (1800 edition) Gutenberg.org
Civilisation
1. Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Pimlico, London, 1997.
2. Nicholas Dent, Rousseau, Routledge, New York, 2005.
The French Revolution
1. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History, Gutenberg. org, 2006.
2. Graeme Fife, The Terror, Portrait, London, 2004.
3. Mathew Arnold, Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, ed. Johnson, William Savage, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
4. Roger Sharrock, Selected Poems of William Wordsworth, Heinemann, London, 1968.
5. Rupert Christiansen, Romantic Affinities, Pimlico, London, 2004.
6. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1962.
7. William Wordsworth, ‘The French Revolution’ in Sharrock, Roger (ed.), Selected Poems of William Wordsworth, Heinemann, London,1968.
8. William Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude, or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind’ in Ernest de Selincourt (ed.), Oxford University Press, London,1960.
9. Ibid.
The Story Is in the Soil
1. Gavin Edwards, ‘Rock’s Boy Genius’, Rolling Stone, October 2002.
2. Bright Eyes, ‘I Believe in Symmetry’, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Saddle Creek CD, 2005.
3. Bright Eyes, ‘Road to Joy’, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning, Saddle Creek CD, 2005
4. Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Pimlico, London, 1997.
5. Rupert Christiansen, Romantic Affinities, Pimlico, London, 2004.
6. William Vaughn, Romanticism and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994.
7. Ludwig Van Beethoven, Beethoven’s Letters, 1790–1826, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
8. Bright Eyes. ‘Road to Joy’, op. cit.
9. Triple j interview, Zan Rowe
10. Ibid.
A Motion and a Spirit
1. William Wordsworth, ‘Tintern Abbey’, in Sharrock, Roger (ed.), Selected Poems of William Wordsworth, Heinemann, London, 1968.
2. William Wordsworth, ‘Tintern Abbey’ in William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, with other poems, (1800 edition) Gutenberg.org
3. William Wordsworth, ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’ in William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, with other poems, op. cit.
Romantic
1. Brian Howe, ‘Bright Eyes: Noise Floor’ (review), Pitchfork.com, October 2006.
2. Isiah Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the history of ideas, Hogarth Press, London, 1979.
3. Robert Barnard, A Short History of English Literature, B. Blackwell, New York, 1984.
4. William Wordsworth, ‘The Tables Turned’ in Roger Sharrock (ed.), Selected Poems of William Wordsworth, Heinemann, London, 1968.
5. Ibid.
Disenchanted
1. My Chemical Romance, ‘Disenchanted’, The Black Parade is Dead, Warner/Reprise DVD, 2008.
2. My Chemical Romance, ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’, The Black Para de, Warner/Reprise CD, 2006.
3. Ibid.
4. Alex De Jonge, Dostoyevsky and the Age of Intensity, Secker and Warburg, London, 1975.
5. Wordsworth, ‘The Prelude’, Oxford University Press, London, 1964.
6. Ibid.
7. Herbert Read, To Hell With Culture, Routledge, London, 2002.
8. William Vaughn, Romanticism and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994.
Paint It Black and Take It Back
1. Dan Stapleton, ‘My Chemical Romance’, Rolling Stone, February 2007.
2. Shirley Halperin, ‘Coldplay talk “Viva la Vida”’. Ew.com., June 2007.
3. Tom Prideaux, The World of Delacroix 1798–1863, Time Incorporated, New York, 1966.
4. Ibid.
5. William Vaughn, Romanticism and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994.
6. Tom Prideaux, op. cit.
7. Shirley Halperin, ‘Coldplay talk “Viva la Vida”’. Ew.com., June 2007.
8. Mtv.com ‘Buzzworthy’, June 2007.
Napoleon
1. Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Pimlico, London, 1997.
2. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1962.
3. H C Robbins Landon, Beethoven: A Documentary Study, Thames and Hudson, London,1974.
4. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, Routledge, London, 2006.
5. Hobsbawm, op. cit.
6. Russell, op. cit.
7. Hobsbawm, op. cit.
8. Davies, op. cit.
9. William Vaughn, Romanticism and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994.
10. Davies, op.cit.
11. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
12. Thomas Carlyle, Introduction to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Truth and Fiction relating to my life. Gutenberg.org, 2004.
13. Ibid.
14. Hobsbawm, op. cit.
This Tragic Affair
1. My Chemical Romance, ‘Famous Last Words’, The Black Parade, Warner/Reprise CD, 2006.
2. Tom Rawstorne, ‘Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo’, Dailymail.co.uk, May 2008.
3. Rupert Christiansen, Romantic Affinities, Pimlico, London, 2004.
4. Thomas Carlyle, Introduction to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Truth and Fiction relating to my life. Gutenberg.org, 2004.
5. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
Passion Incapable of Being Converted into Action
1. William Vaughn, Romanticism and Art, Thames and Hudson, London, 1994.
2. Gerhart Hoffmeister, ‘Reception in Germany and Abroad’ in Lesley Sharpe, The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Barker Fairley, A Study of Goethe, Oxford University Press, London, 1950.
6. Hoffmeister, op. cit.
7. Thomas Carlyle, Introduction to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Truth and Fiction relating to my life
. Gutenberg.org, 2004.
8. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
9. Carlyle, op. cit.
Sentimentalists
1. Rupert Christiansen, Romantic Affinities, Pimlico, London, 2004
2. Walter Benjamin, ‘Goethe’ in Michael Jennings (ed.), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume 2, Part 1, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2005.
3. Christiansen, op. cit.
4. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Gutenberg.org, 2004.
5. Martin Swales, ‘Goethe’s Prose Fiction’ in Lesley Sharpe, The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002.
Across the Sea
1. Weezer, ‘Across the Sea’, Pinkerton, Geffen CD, 1996.
2. Weezer, ‘Butterfly’, Pinkerton, Geffen CD, 1996.
3. Chris Mundy, ‘Weezer’s Cracked Genius’, Rolling Stone, September 2001.
4. Ibid.
5. Andy Greenwald, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, St Martins Press, New York, 2003.
6. Ibid.
7. John Weightman, The Concept of the Avant-Garde: Explorations in Modernism, Alcove Press, 1973.
8. Greenwald, op. cit.
9. Greenwald, op cit.
10. Posted in ‘The Despair Faction’, despairfaction.com, November 2007
Love Like Winter
1. Neil Strauss, ‘AFI: Decemberunderground’ (album review), Rolling Stone, June 2006.
2. Alex De Jonge, Dostoyevsky and the Age of Intensity, Secker and Warburg, London, 1975.
3. Davey Havok, ‘Decemberunderground’, AFI official website, afireinside.net
4. Austin Scaggs, ‘Davey Havok: Q&A’, Rolling Stone, June 2006.
5. AFI, ‘Summer Shudder’, Decemberunderground, Interscope/Universal CD, 2006.
6. AFI, ‘Love Like Winter’, Decemberunderground, Interscope/Universal CD, 2006.
7. The Making of ‘Love Like Winter’ Part 1. YouTube.com
Hey, Nietzsche! Leave them kids alone Page 32