The Black Parade: A Deep Dive Into My Chemical Romance’s Concept Album

By. Maddie Hendrickson

The performance of The Black Parade takes place in a fictional country called Draag, ruled by the great immortal dictator. They perform as a band called the Black Parade, created by the rule of the country as propaganda. They put on a show and depict a story, however, they are literally performing as the black parade to the audience. The audience is very involved in their shows as they immerse the crowd into this world. But what is the album actually about?

The Journey of The Patient

The concept album chronologically follows ‘The Patient’, a man conscious of his approaching his death. The patient learns of his cancer diagnosis and the fact that he will soon die in the opening 2 tracks.

The patient then holds a seance, reaching out to his late lover, revealing he will not be remembered after death since she’s already gone. He mentions that he was not fulfilled with his past way of living, living close to the edge and putting himself at risk throughout his life.

By the middle of the album, the patient recounts a memory with his father as a boy, in the song Welcome to the Black Parade, remembering the times his father told him to make a change and help others because, one day, he would have to leave him in death. He really takes this time to come to terms with death and recognize the choices and realizations he’s made in life.

The next track, I don’t love you, strays from the story of the patient. In which Gerard Way, My Chemical Romance’s lead singer, sings of truly falling out of love with his partner. Although it doesn’t apply to the patient, it is a crowd favorite within the album and a beautiful story of how hard change can be.

The album returns to the tale of the patient with the song House of Wolves. The patient accepts his past and knows who he was in life, knowing he very well may go to hell.

The patient soon observes the decay of himself with the existence of his cancer, telling his loved ones to not pity him because he’s sick, the hardest part being knowing he’s hurting those that do care for him.

Confronting Guilt and Society

The patient remembers his time as a soldier, being forever changed by the evils of war, he pleads with mother war asking for forgiveness for what he’s done and who he became after battle. He blames mother war for who he has become while she doesn’t want to hear his cries.

At the beginning of the song Sleep, you hear Gerard describing his night terrors he had whilst recording the album. The patient remembers the horrible things he did to people and faces his guilt asking “how could you cry for me?” knowing he has done so many awful things yet still wanting someone to care for him. This tells of how his mind tortured him with conflictions, yelling to just sleep yet also being told to wake up.

This is followed by teenagers, another track straying from the story of the patient. Teenagers talks about the way society treats all kinds of teenagers. How they are shoved into some sort of box when they show individuality or alternativeness or sent off to the military right when their lives can finally get started living.

After teenagers, Gerard sings disenchanted, originally written because Way felt as though he wouldn’t reach the success of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge the bands previous album feeling disenchanted. This circles back to the story of the patient, feeling as though his life didn’t matter or go the way he wished it could have. Referring to it as “a lifelong wait for a hospital stay.”

Famous Last Words and Final Thoughts

Finally, Famous Last Words. The patient’s last moments alive, written from Gerard’s personal experiences with depression. The song however, ends the album on a positive note. The patient, having gone through addiction, war, cancer, and an unfulfilling life tells the listener they should not be afraid to keep on living. Repeated multiple times in the chorus, it is the conclusion to the album, tying together all the dark themes to finally say they want life. I’ll say it again, I am not afraid to keep on living.

There is a final bonus track, blood. I personally interpret this song as a note found after the patient’s death. He could have written it at the beginning of the album or the end, in which he criticizes the system and society, telling the listener to give them lots of blood. That’s what he did although it wasn’t enough. He knew he was the cautionary tale of the system.

The Black Parade is not just an edgy popular y2k album. It is a rock opera with a devastating story of the different stages of grief, death, corruption, and how dark life can be. Around 6 million copies of the album have been sold with over 5 billion streams on Spotify.

The 20th anniversary show was truly a spectacular sight to behold, hearing songs like disenchanted being sung by around 50,000 people, knowing Gerard Way wrote it worried about not reaching the success he once had felt, was extremely powerful.

Do not be afraid to keep on living.

Source: https://medium.com/@nathantelecky121/album-analysis-79dd06fa99d8