The Black Parade is a must listen to album

The+Black+Parade+is+a+must+listen+to+album

Almost sixteen years ago The Black Parade was released, however with the My Chemical Romance Reunion Tour underway there isn’t a better time to start listening to their music.

The Black Parade is the third studio album from My Chemical Romance and was released on October 20th, 2006 to critical acclaim. The Black Parade isn’t like the previous two albums from My Chemical Romance. This album is a concept album and follows a story of a young man who is dying from cancer.

While we have never actually been told the tracklist that the band wants us to listen to the album. Many fans have come up with their own order for listening to the album. The album has two main characters that being the patient and the parader which is who we see on the album cover. With the album having thirteen songs (excluding the hidden track “Blood”), what better way to start the album than “The End”.

The patient’s first song starts off with acoustic guitar and follows the patient talking about how he’s been nothing but bad for his life, and how he will expect people not to care for his passing. The patient then proceeds to get cut off mid sentence by the parader in “Dead”.

The parader comes in with a band of rock instruments and a killer guitar solo, serving as a symbol of the carefree death in this story. The parader is doing nothing but mocking the patient throughout the whole song.

We then move on to the third song in order “Teenagers”. This song has been made more popular recently with it being used on Tik Tok. This song shows us a glimpse of the patient before he was diagnosed with cancer. Showing us how he was very violent and hateful.

Then the fourth song in order is “The Sharpest Lives”. This song talks about how people are very reckless and how that lifestyle eventually leads to destruction.

Then we move on to the next song “Cancer”. This is definitely one of the sadder songs on the album. That’s because it is simply a very bleak look at cancer. But this does not mean the tones are going to change far from it.

We move into “House Of Wolves” with hard rock instrumentals. The parader mocks people talking about judgment and a complete disregard for life. In this part of the album, the patient can’t hear the parader yet.

There is then a heart shattering turn of events for our patient in the next track “I Don’t Love You”. In this track we see the lover of the patient leave him because he has cancer. This is probably the saddest track on the album, especially saying that the patient and his lover are so young it’s a burden for both of them. In the song you can hear the hatred in the patient’s voice, but how does the parader follow this up?

“This Is How I Disappear” is the next song in order and is the parader talking about the patient dying alone and having no one to remember him. The parader even mocks him with the lyric ”I’m just a ghost So I can’t hurt you anymore”. The line makes fun of the way that the patient used to live his life before cancer and now that he’s dying he will be just a ghost. However we do begin to hear the parader start to crack in this song as he begins to break down seeing a young man dying from cancer.

“Disenchanted” is the next song in order and is my personal favorite. The patient realizes that his life is falling apart and his lover has left him; he gets an odd peace from it. The song shows us this with the line “I hate the ending myself but it started with an alright scene” even though the patient’s dying and can’t control it, he’ll be truly present when death comes.

”Mama” is the parader’s backstory and takes place during WW I. He is disgusted with himself and what he has done during the war. We hear air raid sirens take over the instrumentals and the parader calls out for his mama. Then we hear the parader rise up and is followed by all the other voices of the other lost souls who died in WW I. This shows us why the parader has sympathy for the patient, because he also died from uncontrollable circumstances.

“Sleep” is describing the patients ready to die and that’s okay. However if you listen closely at the end you can hear the parader scream for the patient to wake up and keep on going. The next track is the patient and parader having a discussion about living called “Famous Last Words”. The patient explains that he is ready for death and the parader is arguing that he needs to fight. And with that we are at the last song in order “Welcome to The Black Parade”. This song is after the patient has passed away and has changed his way of life from the start completely. The lead vocalist believes death comes for you in your fondest memory. The patient’s fondest memory was when his father took him into the city to see a marching band. So what better send off to the patient and the album then to throw him a parade.

The album is nothing but a masterpiece of music and storytelling all the way through. If you have not listened to the album I plead for you to go and listen.