And nobody knew if it was the right direction, and things like that,” he says. “It was actually a really hard song to record, because we were, in some ways, so used to the original version that when it came time to start changing things, it was just very difficult.

But there was no ‘Black Parade’ song, and I had known that that’s what I wanted to call the album.”Īs Way looks back on the recording of the song, it was not always a smooth process until the idea of the parade came into play. “There was definitely stuff that was capturing certain conceptual elements, like hell, and being raised Catholic, and mothers, and it had a lot of stuff, there’s like a war theme. But as the concept of the record started to come together, we realized it was a special song, but I started to realize during the actual tracking of the album that there was no song that introduced or encapsulated some of the concepts on the record in that way,” he recalls. It was these chords we really liked, it was a striving kind of a punk song. The song actually had started as this song called ‘The Five of Us Are Dying,’ which is like a riff on an old Twilight Zone episode title. So the question is, how did the song’s place in the world change so dramatically in the thirteen years from when it was released to the band’s first reunion show? Going back to the writing, Way says he knew the band was onto something special from the outset. But something happens when that ring-out happens at the end of the introduction that has gotten very intense, and then there’s that moment of quiet, and then there’s just that drum fill and there’s something about that that energizes absolutely everybody in the room, including the band.” I can kind of barely control myself once it kicks in, especially back in the day when I’d be so energized by what we were doing, I would fall over, convulse or whatever else. “And it does do something, once it really kicks in. This song will probably heighten the last of everyone’s energy, but all they have left for the end of the night, whatever is left from the whole show is gonna go into ‘Black Parade,’ because it did become this kind of anthem,” Way says. We felt like this is the one to end with. “We did know that we wanted to play ‘Black Parade’ last. That very inauspicious debut was like a galaxy far, far away from thirteen years later, when the reunited band closed their triumphant first show in eight years with the song before thousands of screaming fans, singing every last word in unbridled ecstasy at L.A.’s Shrine Auditorium. People were like, ‘Oh, that was great.’ But I was like, ‘I don’t think this translated.’” And I remember at the time, I think the sentiment on the song from the general public was just kind of like, ‘What was that? There are these kids in skeleton make-up, and we’re in all these uniforms, and I can’t really understand the song.’ And that was the vibe I got. We just kind of made our way through this thing. So I’m not sure it translated the first time we played it. It’s not like a lot of things you were hearing on the radio at the time. And we had not played this song as much as a band would like. “And we had all agreed, ‘Okay, we’re gonna play ‘Welcome to the Black Parade.’’

The first time we had ever played it, really, in a live sense was for the VMAs, and MTV was like, ‘Well, we have no room in the show proper, but you guys could play a song before the VMAs starts,’” My Chem frontman Gerard Way recalls. “The first time we played that song was an extremely awkward experience. Or on rare occasions, the song is a hit before it is played live, so the audience knows the song and sings along from the outset, as U2 experienced with “One.”īut no song in this collection had a more interesting debut live performance than My Chemical Romance’s 2006 anthem “Welcome to the Black Parade.” Typically, the song was played first before it was released, as Grace Slick detailed with “White Rabbit,” to an audience totally unfamiliar with the track. Most songs, no matter how big they become, have inauspicious live beginnings. 25 via HarperCollins), features the longtime music writer (and former Rolling Stone staffer) interviewing a wide array of music legends-from Carly Simon and The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson to TLC’s Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas and U2’s The Edge-about the stories behind classic songs that have reached anthem status. S teve Baltin’s upcoming book Anthems We Love (out Oct.

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