No 'Cheers' for My Chemical Romance

The flamboyant frontman on the edge of breakdown is a rock cliché that never goes out of style. In every era, newcomers to the rock circus demand the spotlight by dint of their emotional volatility.

Enter Gerard Way.

Like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie, Gerard Way has a flair for the dramatic. The pale lead singer for My Chemical Romance grew up on comic books, horror movies and Dungeons and Dragons. Accordingly, his band's lyrics revolve around grim stories of death, abandonment and heartbreak.

Way told Rolling Stone that the band's second effort, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, is a "pseudo concept" album about "two lovers who die in the desert in a gunfight. The guy goes to hell and meets the devil, who tells the guy he can only be reunited with his lover if he brings the devil the souls of 1,000 men." The singer's wailing vocals tell that disjointed story over guitar rhythms that reflect influences such as Queen and Iron Maiden mixed with an aggressive, contemporary punk sound. Since its June 2004 release, Revenge's dark themes have cast their spell over a legion of fans, selling almost 800,000 copies.

Don't Fear the Reaper
The specter of death haunts Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Consider "To the End," for example: "He calls the mansion not a house, but a tomb/He's always choking from the stench and the fume/The wedding party all collapsed in the room." The chorus asks, "If you marry me/Would you bury me?/ Would you carry me to the end?" Then it answers, "So say goodbye to the vows you take ... to the life you make ... to the heart you break/And all the cyanide you drank."

Later, Way confesses, "Life is but a dream for the dead," a lyric that summarizes the whole album. When he sings, "I'm not okay ... I'm not o-f---ing-kay," I believe him. Way's well-publicized bouts with alcohol, drugs and depression come as no surprise (can a new episode of Behind the Music be far off?). His bleak perspective on life invites listeners to consider suicide as a logical conclusion on "Cemetery Drive": "Back home, off the run/Singing songs that make you slit your wrists."

Occasionally, the band quits romanticizing death and exhales honest despair. "All alone, and I remember now/At the top of my lungs, in my arms, she dies. ... You are never coming home, never coming home" ("Ghost of You"). For me, it's easier to connect with such straightforward lyrics than those that glamorize dying. Unfortunately, lines like this are more common: "Love is the red rose on your coffin door/What's life like, bleeding on the floor?" ("Thank You for the Venom"). Umm ... I don't know. Furthermore, I don't want to find out.

Counterfeit Hope
Musically, My Chemical Romance's songs churn with a complicated mix of ironic self-awareness and raw emotion. I can understand why Revenge has connected with so many listeners. But the band's macabre fixation on death also left me feeling profoundly empty. These songs would be right at home on the soundtrack to a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Imagine my surprise, then, upon reading Rolling Stone's assessment: "The most common thing My Chem hears from their fans is, 'Your music saved my life.'" How to explain such a response? Christian apologist C.S. Lewis once said we read to know we're not alone. I think music's appeal is similar. When someone vocalizes our deepest hurts, we think, "Yes! Somebody understands!" Something akin to hope temporarily floods our hearts.

But the "hope" My Chemical Romance offers turns out to be a mirage, the futile words of one person in the dark saying to another, "We're lost, aren't we?" Admitting you're lost may bring momentary comfort, but soon darkness closes in again. Likewise, when music-driven emotions fade, so does the flickering flame of hope they briefly offered.

Way told Rolling Stone that the band's next album will be "more direct." "There's just so much I want to say about real life now. We're starting to see the beauty of the world and truly understand our relationships with other human beings like our loved ones. What's wrong with writing a song about missing somebody instead of vampire assassins?" Indeed. For the sake of My Chemical Romance's desperate listeners, I sincerely hope that the band has more to offer next time than the cold serving of despair Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge dishes up now.