Troubling discovery

[slevin]

If there is anyone out there who has heard, or likes My Chemical Romance, then i urge you to go listen to the black parade before you read anymore. especailly "Teenagers". Once you have done that, then compare it to the VT shootings.
now im not a downer person, and i dont wanna blame music for this tragedy and im not trying to. its just that when you listen to he words of that cd and think about the shooting it is scary how it matches up.:smalleek:

[Tor the Fallen]

For those not familiar with MCR:

"Teenagers"

They're gonna clean up your looks
With all the lies in the books
To make a citizen out of you
Because they sleep with a gun
And keep an eye on you, son
So they can watch all the things you do

Because the drugs never work
They're gonna give you a smirk
'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean
They're gonna rip up your heads,
Your aspirations to shreds
Another cog in the murder machine

They said all teenagers scare the living **** out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me

The boys and girls in the clique
The awful names that they stick
You're never gonna fit in much, kid
But if you're troubled and hurt
What you got under your shirt
Will make them pay for the things that they did

They said all teenagers scare the living **** out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me

Ohhh yeah!

They said all teenagers scare the living **** out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me

All together now!

Teenagers scare the living **** out of me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me
[x2]

The use of pronouns is a bit confusing. Who's they? The teenagers, or the ones making a citizen out of them?

[MinusInnocence]

Hmm, a song about young people who don't fit in... SPOOKY COINCIDENCE.

The gunman didn't kill over 30 people before taking his own life because he was bullied; in fact by all accounts people at the school were afraid of him, not the other way around.

[Om]

I see nothing notable able this. MCR are simply playing to their market and wearing black does not indicate a general desire to pick up a gun and go on a rampage

Note that "murder machine" refers to the educational system and not to some violent organisation.

[Mauril Everleaf]

If anything this song matches up more with shootings like Columbine than Virginia Tech. Since this was written after those high school shootings, it is more likely that MCR was mirroring those. There are superficial similarities with the VT massacre (as the media is calling it), but those are similarities that would come with almost any shooting spree. People who are well-balanced and content with their situation do not shoot and kill over 30 people. The unbalanced, angry ones do, similar to the character described in this song.

Also, there are a thousand other emo songs that could have fit this bill as well. That's kinda the message of emo music: life sucks and you a)cry about it, b)hurt yourself, or c)hurt someone else. So while the message that emo music sends bothers me, this one in particular doesn't worry me any more than most of the others.

Also, I doubt Cho decided to commit this heinous act because a song suggested it, but rather because he was mentally unstable and overly agressive. Don't even imply that the media is to blame for people's insanity. For our desensitization to it, maybe, but not our willingness to commit such atrocities. Don't cheapen the lives of those who were lost by blaming it on society.

[slevin]

I never once said that this was because of music or was even trying to blame music for what Cho did, i was simply trying to point out that, for me at least, it was kinda spooky. mainly because i was listening to the song on my iPOD while i was watching tv on mute. but like i said, thats just me.

Plus i never said "just Teenagers" i sait the whole cd. maybe because it has to do with death, or because one of my favorite hobbies is analyzing songs (all kinds might i add)

[sethdarkwater]

I never once said that this was because of music or was even trying to blame music for what Cho did, i was simply trying to point out that, for me at least, it was kinda spooky. mainly because i was listening to the song on my iPOD while i was watching tv on mute. but like i said, thats just me.

Plus i never said "just Teenagers" i sait the whole cd. maybe because it has to do with death, or because one of my favorite hobbies is analyzing songs (all kinds might i add)

Yeah its overanalyzation, but no worries I do it all the time.

[McDeath]

Ah, My Chemical Romance...sticking to your target audience of self-conscious pseudo-intellectual teenagers. You see, kids, if you had actually realised the truth about the world, you'd be out having fun rather than wearing black and cutting yourself. You give philosophy majors a bad name.

[ExHunterEmerald]

I'm fairly sure, if I recall, Teenagers was about the Patient's days in boot camp. So the "Murder Machine" was the US armed forces, not education.

The whole album is about the life and death of a cancer patient, so I don't see much in the way of connections.

[Mewtarthio]

The use of pronouns is a bit confusing. Who's they? The teenagers, or the ones making a citizen out of them?

It's "them," of course. You know, that third-person plural pronoun that vaguely refers to some higher force that doesn't care about you.

[Arlanthe]

Sounds like every other song in the spooky teen angst sphere.