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Musings on "Heaven Help Us"
Aug. 6th, 2007 07:23 pm[mood| 
contemplative]
[music|Misery Business--Paramore]
My brother John, his girlfriend Sam, and I have this theory on Heaven Help Us. I mean, yes, I think a ton of My Chem fans would agree that it is the most album-worthy b-side (moreso that Kill All Your Friends, IMO), but in the grand scope of TBP, if placed at the top of the tracklist, we speculated that HHU is a type of prologue to TBP.
Lyrically and melodically, it starts with a sort of strange homage to a traditional Christmas song: O Holy Night, echoing the line and notes in the lyrics "Here the sound...", and deviates from there on, but it gives the symbolic impression of a kind of higher power (by Catholic standards, since Frank is Catholic, and apparently Gerard and Mikey were raised as such?) watching over the souls of the poor wretches found throughout The Black Parade, though this may also be painfully obvious because, duh, Heaven Help Us. Then of course, there's the imagery of him being "sprawled on these cathedral steps", which continues the motif.
The layered vocals near the end go "You don't know a thing about my sins, how the misery begins", indicating that indeed, we know nothing as of yet that we could damn him for, but "I'll give you all the nails you need, cover me in gasoline", meaning he'll give us the reasons why he needs Heaven to "come crashing down" on him, or, more accurately, the characters in the other songs on TBP. So, in essence, HHU is an overview and at the same time--"Someone save us! Heaven help us now!"--that is a sort of tribute like "For those of you who are about to rock, we salute you." Or, in this case, you could replace "rock" with "die" to fit the concept album :D And thus, with a blessing, does the scene fade into a hospital room, and a patient dying tragically young :-)
Anyone else get the same vibe, or have a different view? Let us know, we'd love to hear it ^__^
contemplative][music|Misery Business--Paramore]
My brother John, his girlfriend Sam, and I have this theory on Heaven Help Us. I mean, yes, I think a ton of My Chem fans would agree that it is the most album-worthy b-side (moreso that Kill All Your Friends, IMO), but in the grand scope of TBP, if placed at the top of the tracklist, we speculated that HHU is a type of prologue to TBP.
Lyrically and melodically, it starts with a sort of strange homage to a traditional Christmas song: O Holy Night, echoing the line and notes in the lyrics "Here the sound...", and deviates from there on, but it gives the symbolic impression of a kind of higher power (by Catholic standards, since Frank is Catholic, and apparently Gerard and Mikey were raised as such?) watching over the souls of the poor wretches found throughout The Black Parade, though this may also be painfully obvious because, duh, Heaven Help Us. Then of course, there's the imagery of him being "sprawled on these cathedral steps", which continues the motif.
The layered vocals near the end go "You don't know a thing about my sins, how the misery begins", indicating that indeed, we know nothing as of yet that we could damn him for, but "I'll give you all the nails you need, cover me in gasoline", meaning he'll give us the reasons why he needs Heaven to "come crashing down" on him, or, more accurately, the characters in the other songs on TBP. So, in essence, HHU is an overview and at the same time--"Someone save us! Heaven help us now!"--that is a sort of tribute like "For those of you who are about to rock, we salute you." Or, in this case, you could replace "rock" with "die" to fit the concept album :D And thus, with a blessing, does the scene fade into a hospital room, and a patient dying tragically young :-)
Anyone else get the same vibe, or have a different view? Let us know, we'd love to hear it ^__^
