MCR Quotes // The Black Parade Facts

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The Black Parade Facts

During the recording of The Black Parade, Mikey began referring to the record as “Pre-Midlife Crisis and the Infinite Sadness”.
Gerard said that ‘The Black Parade’ tried to kill them when they were making it, but Frank said that the hardship they endured ultimately brought them all closer together.
Frank played a lot of the songs on this album with a broken guitar—he broke the guitar’s neck into three pieces whilst playing a show for the Give It A Name festival. Luckily, his guitar tech Hans was able to fix it, and Frank said that it actually played “better than it did before”.
Gerard had suicidal thoughts whilst staying at The Paramour, and that he had to constantly fight back “the urge to just walk into the swimming pool and stand at the bottom until I couldn’t breathe.”
The concept of this record started out as about Hell. One of the earliest titles for it was “The Fall Of The Damned,” named after a renaissance painting of the same name according to Gerard. He even did some album artwork using the painting, but he said whilst it looked pretty cool it “just seemed arbitrary and lazy.”
Mikey became heavily depressed during this record, and ending up seeing up to four therapists a week and leaving The Paramour to go stay with the band’s attorney, Stacy Fass. He said that without her help he “would be in a white coat in a circular room” and Gerard said she was “our beacon of hope, our sister, and at times our mother.” Mikey’s leaving triggered a creative stasis of sorts for the band, and Gerard states that they “walked around like zombies, not creating, not showering, not living.”
The twin wolves featured in the album artwork are meant to represent the Devil.
A lot of the album was inspired by a painting Gerard found called ‘March of the Saints’, which reportedly featured Joan of Arc and he found in a bathroom of The Paramour. He has also said he became obsessed with Joan of Arc during this period, and that he bought every movie of her he could find and watched them over and over.
The title ‘The Black Parade’ came from scribbled notes Gerard kept during his nightmares, where he’d written, at some point, ‘We are all just a black parade’. The Black Parade is meant to represent death and a final march into the unknown.
James Jean, a comic book artist, did the cover for the record. He was first contacted about doing the covers for ‘The Umbrella Academy’ but it was decided that he was the perfect artist for the record instead.
Gerard said that they needed a record “with social commentary, a healthy doses of black humor, a sparing and tasteful dose of irony, and unapologetic self-expression.”
The whole album is meant to be an almost ‘death-rock’ version of The Beatles’ legendary album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the alter-egos they became.
To help deal with the pressure of recording the band had a three rooms in The Paramour called ‘heavy rooms’, where they could go to talk and let everything they were feeling out in a secure and private environment. Bob said that “every heavy room meeting would end up good and everyone would be happy and smiling”, although they would often go on for hours.
The end of the record and the Patient’s fate is left ambiguous, and Gerard has said that maybe he’s not dead and maybe it’s “all in his head.”

The End

This song was inspired by one of Gerard and Frank’s favourite David Bowie’s songs, ‘Five Years’. That song was one that Frank often included on mix-tapes and the pysch-up play lists he made for playing before their shows.
This was originally just titled ‘Intro’, and both Ray and Frank refer to it as so in the limited edition version of The Black Parade.
Frank has said that’s he thinks he might have “even had to invent a chord or two” to make the progression just perfect but that the finished song was “everything we all hoped it could be.”

Dead!

Ray said that the energy on this song, after the more sedate and moody ‘The End’ is “definitely tongue-in-cheek black humour”.
Gerard, Ray and Frank all get to sing in unison with the ‘la, la, la’ melody and it’s a part that Ray always looks to forward during practice and playing live, considering it really “infectious” and “an incredible hook”. This is the first time that the three of them have sung together at the same time.
Frank pushed for the ‘tuba part’ on the bridge, and said that if you hate it you should “come see me about it”.
This song, along with This Is How I Disappear and Heaven Help Us, was recorded first in the makeshift studio they set up in the back of their bus so they could still create music whilst they were touring.
Whilst most of Ray’s solos were very carefully planned out, he said this one was very “spur of the moment” and he went for a “Cheap Trick I Want You To Want Me thing”.

This Is How I Disappear

At first Frank didn’t like this song as whole (although he liked parts of it.) When it was finished, however, he said he really loved it.
The opening riff of this song was written in the parking lot of a San Francisco venue and in the dressing room afterwards back in 2004.
The first version of this song was okay, according to the band, but was boring and definitely missing something. Ray stated that it was “monotonous” because of the chorus and verse progression being the same, but after they changed a few things it “took on a whole new life”.

The Sharpest Lives

Gerard told Frank he wanted a ‘spy guitar’ part for the pre-chorus, and Frank said yes because “that’s what you say to a dude that you love and respect who tells you he’s so into your vibe that you are the only one for the job.” Problem was, he hadn’t ever seen a 007 movie and he realised he was “pretty screwed”. He ended up practising all night to try and get the right sound.
This was originally titled ‘A Kiss Before She Goes’.

Welcome to the Black Parade

Frank came up with the original title of ‘The Five of Us Are Dying’ back in 2002 when they were recording Bullets, and it was apparently a reference to the Twilight Zone episode title ‘The Four of Us Are Dying’. This was a title which stuck through to March in 2006.
Gerard Way hummed the tune for the piano part to Rob Cavallo, who translated this into notes.
In the video, the patient is played by Lukas Haas, an actor known for playing Richie Norris in Mars Attacks!
The line ‘sometimes I get the feeling she’s watching over me’ is about the Way brothers’ late grandmother, Elena.
The final cut of this song contained over 167 different tracks, more in one song than the mixer, Chris Lord-Alge, had ever used in his 20-year career. Chris Lord-Alge also went on to work with the band on Danger Days.
The last run of Ray’s solo featured on this song was actually recorded in his apartment when he was writing it, as he couldn’t repeat exactly how he wanted it in the studio and kept messing up because he was so nervous.
Gerard has said that this song is about him and his dad, and that his dad took him to see a parade when he was younger. He always told Gerard when he was a kid that “you can be whatever you want”.

I Don’t Love You

According to Frank, this song hardly changed from the first time they played it in New York City. Ray said that this was one of those songs which “writes itself” and that it “came together really quickly” when they started writing.
This was apparently originally titled ‘Father’, although some sources state that it was ‘The End’, not this song, which was called ‘Father’.
You can hear Gerard and Ray singing a part of the demo of this on the Life on the Murder Scene DVD.
Ray’s solo on this one is “really simple” but ended up being one of his favourites on the record.
Frank says he has a soft spot for this song because it reminds him of something that Otis Redding would play, and that it’s one of his favourites on the records.

House of Wolves

Frank originally wrote the guitar riff of this on one of Rob’s acoustic guitars as something for his dad when the band was stuck in a rough patch whilst trying to make the album. He played it for the band and this was one of the things which helped them become creative once more. He said it “makes me smile knowing a song I wrote for my dad got the record going again.”
Gerard said that this is the only song about Hell (not ‘Mama’, which he considers more about “damnation and war”), the original concept of the album, and that “it fits into the story quite nicely.”

Cancer

Frank said he “cannot just superficially listen to this song” and that he has to try his best “to hold back tears” every time he hears it.
The chords of this were first written for the guitar but Ray said that whilst they “were happy with what we came up with” they also “ultimately knew the song needed to have piano.”
This is one of the handful tracks on the record which Ray plays bass on.
Gerard came to Ray with this track late at night, whilst they were discussing emotions in songs. There was no music then, only lyrics and a vocal melody.
Ray said he worried about the subject matter of this song, concerned on whether or not it would be too upsetting for some people, but someone he loved who had been affected by cancer helped him realise that it was a tribute to those who had died and might help the families of the victims.

Mama

The original title of Mama was actually ‘Momma’, as seen in several magazines and reviews.
Ray said that this ended up as the most experimental track on the record, and that they tried to make it very cinematic so that it conjured up images of “war and death.”
Gerard has stated that it’s “meant to feel like a letter from the trenches” and that it describes what it feels like to be in a band and that sometimes he’s felt “like I wanted my mother” because he’s in “this big, crazy world now, people are trying to fuck me or kill me, I don’t know who my friends are, and it’s like, ‘Mom, I’m not ready for this.’”
Gerard first came up with the line ‘Mama, we all go to hell’ when they played a show at an arena in Chicago. Him and Ray worked out a guitar part to go along with it and they played it at sound check.
The ending of Mama features some of the band’s parents singing. This was because they wanted to “have them on the track forever” and apparently made the song even more special for them.
Ray also said that one of his favorite parts of this song “is a [guitar] tone that probably only dolphins, dogs and whales can hear. It’s in there, and you feel it more than you can actually hear it.”
Liza Minnelli’s guest vocals were recorded live in a completely different studio, in New York City whilst the band was in a tracking room in Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles. They were all very excited about having her on the record (Ray called it one of the best moments of his life), but it was especially so for the Way brothers because she was their grandmother’s favourite performer (although Frank said that “growing up in an Italian household in New Jersey, she was your parents’ favourite performer” as well.)
Liza Minnelli plays the part of Mother War on this song, and she’s meant to be talking about the loss of her children.
There was a concept for the video for this song created, and some of their ideas for it included the band being chased by wolves, Liza Minnelli playing the Virgin Mary and Grant Morrison (who later starred as Korse in Danger Days) playing the Devil.
The laughing/crying at the end of the track was done spontaneously by Liza Minnelli.

Sleep

This song was written about the nightmares that Gerard was having whilst they were recording, recurring ones about “Joan of Arc and brimstone and damnation”, fire and people he “really loved” dying. He would wake up being choked on a regular basis. According to Frank it was also heavily inspired by “nerd movies”.
Frank said he is creeped out by the tape recorder parts, which are heavily distorted recordings by Gerard describing his night terrors.
It was apparently influenced by Toto, especially their work on the Dune soundtrack, and Ray said if you listen “you can definitely hear the influence” and that it has a “very Egyptian vibe.”

Teenagers

Gerard said in a Kerrang! interview that this song is “a commentary on kids being viewed as meat; by the government and by society” and it’s about how he “felt in school” and how he felt in general after 9/11.

Gerard wrote this on the subway on his way to the studio to calm himself down—he was having a panic attack because he was surrounded by teenagers. He said that “was the first time I felt old. I was nervous and I was a target. I felt like I had become a parent figure or part of the problem.” He also said he developed a “pretty strong social anxiety” and that he was “completely unable to adjust to living a normal life”. He has admitted that “it was pretty comical.”
John McGuire (better known as Hambone, a good friend of the band and one of the former members of Pencey Prep) didn’t like this song when they recorded it.
Frank said he had reservations about putting it on the record because he didn’t think people would “really look into what Gerard was saying” but that he really liked the lyrics and urges people to “pay attention” to them.

Disenchanted

Ray has said that he was really nervous about recording it because when you’re “recording acoustically, you can hear every little mistake” and that “if you listen closely, you can hear the chair I was sitting on squeaking when I tried to shift my weight to get more comfortable.”
This was originally titled ‘Shut Up and Play’ and was written back when they were rehearsing for the U.S tour in 2005.
This is one of Mikey’s favourite songs off the record and Frank has said that Mikey “would not let us rest until we revisited it” after they’d abandoned it to work on other things. Mikey himself has stated this was because he’d “always wanted the band to have a Journey-esque power ballad”.
Mikey once spent five hours in a row listening to Disenchanted on repeat in the lounge whilst they were recording the album.
The acoustic guitar they used on this record (and The End, too) was the same one that Billie Joe played on ‘Time of Your Life’, and belonged to Rob.

Famous Last Words

Gerard and Ray conceived the beginnings of this song at about 4 A.M one night, when neither of them could sleep and they were both aimlessly playing and messing around.
Frank has described this song as “Sleep’s sister song”.
Gerard (with Rob) first came up with the chorus after the other members of the band went out to get some coffee, and Frank was surprised with vocals because he thought they were “completely different than what I thought [Gerard] was recording.” He, apparently, didn’t like it at first, but at the end of recording considered it a “perfect ending” to the album.
Ray’s solo in this was heavily inspired by Randy Rhoades.
From when they first started writing Famous Last Words, they intended it to be the last song on the record. Ray said it’s meant to encompass “all you had heard before” and leave “you wanting to go through the whole journey again.”