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In this crazy, wacky article, Peter reviews the very complex story on MCR's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.
Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge: A Snazzy Review by a Whimsical Man
By: Peter Easterwood
Warning: This album deals with suicide and drug abuse.
My Chemical Romance (or MCR) is a famous rock and punk band that helped push the emo genre aesthetic front and center. The band includes leadman and singer Gerard Way, lead guitarist and backup vocalist Ray Toro, rhythm guitarist as well as backup vocalist Frank Iero, bassist Mikey Way, and finally Matt Pelissier on the drums/percussion. Before Three Cheers, MCR released their debut studio concept album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love on July 23, 2002. Their debut was raw, with undercooked mixing, and Way’s vocals were less expressive than in their three other albums to come afterward.
Although it seemed like MCR’s debut was not that important nor impressive for the Punk genre, it actually previewed a new sound in the genre. Punk was run by multiple bands (Against Me!, Simple Plan, etc.) with a specific sound, that would constantly be copied and pasted for newer bands just trying to make it in. MCR was not like those other bands; they were different, taking in the Punk/Emo dark lyricism, Way’s whiny vocals, and mixing it with Metal drums and guitar riffs. MCR just needed some time to clean up their mixing, and get more experimental with their sound.
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Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge came with all of the above; the instruments sounded much cleaner and less mushed together, and Way’s vocals are more emotional. With these changes, the album for listeners is much easier to get into than their debut. Three Cheers also incorporated a story, continuing from I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The album tells the tale of two lovers running from an enemy and their experiences, ending in them being gunned down in a desert. Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge continues with the girlfriend being in hell, and the boyfriend (played by Gerard Way) being in the middle of nowhere, by himself (purgatory in a sense). The boyfriend is going through a test: what would you do for love, and what are the limits?
Three Cheers opens with the biggest track on the album, “Helena,” a story about chasing love, with the boyfriend trying to see if they can meet again like they used to in the living world. “Helena” sets the stage for what the listener is getting into: a constant chase for love, seeing the boyfriend doing as much as he can to meet back with his love. On “Give ‘Em Hell, Kid”, he burns for his love, seeing if she would be willing to come back to him. On “To the End,” we see the boyfriend. He questions her and questions them as a couple. He does not know how loyal she has been when they were together, and being without her eats him inside. In the fourth song on the album, “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison,” we learn that he is trapped, he sees it as a prison, but it is his life and he has created this purgatory. He is trying to come back to her. Throughout the album, he is given the duty to kill others in order to make it back with her.
After the course of these four tracks, the listener might not be able to follow the story at first. All Campus Radio Network, Ohio University's radio station, puts most of the pieces together and finds what the story follows. Devon Hannen, the Editorial Director, states, “My Chemical Romance’s second studio album Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge follows the tale of two criminals in love. After his lover dies, the nameless main character finds himself in a deal with the devil.” Following this story, the trials and tribulations the speaker goes through add up through each song. Instead of the album just being a love story with different metaphors to portray love itself, it is a story of giving in, just for your love. It's an eerie topic, and the further into the album listeners get, the eerier it gets, dealing with suicidal tendencies, and drug abuse.
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The next song up is “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” a song about how exhausted the speaker is-- mentally and physically. This exhaustion may be from the mission he is on, or the constant pain and stress the loss of his love has given him. With all of the lyrics needing a closer look, Musixmatch (a trusted lyrics site, commonly used by Spotify), helps to deconstruct some words that the main character sings: “I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay now.” He tries to hide the issue with a switch of attitude in the song. This leads into “The Ghost of You.” The main character thinks about what could have happened if he were to die. He knows they would still be together if he were to perish. The issue is that he is alive, putting his life on the line to bring her back but, at this moment, he misses her, knowing that every time he is home, his love will not appear. He is now haunted by the ghosts of the men he killed, and the scars that they have given him along the way.
“The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You,” is the main character dealing with drug addiction. He is haunted by these ghosts that follow him, so he blocks them out with prescriptions. He talks to a new, unnamed girl, even the main character does not know her name. She most likely is his dealer. He sings, “She bought the last line.” With these drugs in hand, he nearly overdoses. In the hospital, he tries to convince her to tell him her name, and pull the plug to end his suffering. The interlude comes right afterward, showing the main character praying for their protection, not for him but for his lover. The song “Thank You for the Venom,” shows the main character talking to his dealer. She’s trying to convince him to change. He does not want to, though. All he wants is his lover back, but he tells her to try her best to convince him because he knows it is not the best life for him to live. This leads into their duo killings on “Hang ‘Em High,” where they work together, whether it be because she is in love with him and doing anything he wants, or he convinced her to help. In the middle of the song, he says, “She won’t stop me, put it down,” hinting at them arguing about whether it is the right choice or not, but it doesn’t stop him. He’s willing to die. He has almost finished his job. He is nearing the end, and with a partner helping him with the killings, nothing can go wrong.
Well, something goes wrong: he is murdered by his partner in crime. “It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a Death Sentence,” shows that the partner most likely killed him from jealousy after being hurt by seeing the man she loves fighting for another woman, taking the “If I can’t have you, then no one will” idea seriously. The main character does not die. He climbs out of his grave in revenge, promising that it is for the best. He is trying to calm her down with the thought of death by letting her know that they will meet in the afterlife sooner than later. On “Cemetery Drive,” he meets his dead love at the cemetery she lay in, where they go on a date in that exact place. The issue with the date is that she is with another man, to whom she is now married. It pains the main character to find that out, but they are still in love with each other. They kiss, but the main character has to leave since he is on the run, so he leaves her crying by herself.
The final song, “I Never Told You What I Do For a Living,” has the main character make a massive decision. He has met his final criminal. He sings, “Another night and I'll see you,” in hope that he will finally make it back with her. The final criminal is him from the past, though-- before he and his lover got gunned down in the last album. He sees that he is running in a circle, being the enemy that they were running from during I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. He is in the devil’s grasp. It was all a trick. Now, he has to decide whether he should literally kill his past self in front of his wife or whether he should leave them be, knowing he will not be back with her. He decides that the only way his life may get back together is if he kills both of them. Going with the plan, he kills them. He sings, “They gave us two shots to the back of the head And we're all dead now.” The ending leaves him all alone, breaking the rules given to him, and being killed by the devil. It circles back to the start, with past-him following the same path present-him was given at the start of Three Cheers.
Photo by Pix4free
Even though it seems like the main character and his wife were killed by someone else, it seems that he is coping with himself, acting like it wasn’t him who killed his past self. With this confusing story coming to an end, the music itself is very clean, and stands as one of the best emo rock albums of all time. The biggest issue a listener can have with this album is the messy storytelling, but if listeners are just wanting to hear the album as simple music without a complex story, then they will have a great experience. I had no big issues with the sound or vocals, and the album consistently hits throughout each minute. With that being said, it still isn’t their best album, that being The Black Parade (that is another story for later). Overall, I’ll give Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge an 8.8/10. It is a great album, with consistency, impressive vocals, and clean instrumentals.
Sources:
https://acrn.com/2018/09/24/my-chemical-romances-three-cheers-for-sweet-revenge-vs-the-black-parade/
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