Song; Chemical Romance, Sing

I find that while songs don't normally get me thinking in deep ways, this one has. It's also making me very sad.

The song is Sing, by Chemical Romance. I really adore the music, I think it's a beautiful sounding song.

In real life, I have been watching the way another culture interacts within their own families. They do everything wrong, according to us. The parents are supposed to give the children anything they ask for, and not say no. Older siblings are supposed to give to younger. Even when the children grow up. Not what we do.
At the same time, the children must give absolute obedience to the parents, even as adults married with their own families, and the younger siblings must obey the older, again, even as adults.
So different from us. But the result is different as well. Unlike here in America, everyone in their culture loves children, it's the most obvious thing in the world to them. The parents actually care for and spoil their children, and love and love and love them till it's almost too much to bear to watch from the outside. I want to cry when I see it. And the children end up growing up with such gratitude and respect that they care for and become the providers of their parents as soon as they are old enough, and take care of them into old age.
The result is that families have babies, children, young adults, young married parents, older parents, grandparents, great grandparents, all living in a closely knit community of family where people are not scared to be open and vulnerable and love and have feelings. They feel. They have hearts. I regain my heart when I am around them. It is a very safe environment to love others from the deepest part of your heart. This is what 'those' people mean when they say the family is being destroyed in America; we are losing this community of obligation and love and duty and safety and... I don't know. Obviously I can't make it sound appealing if you are bent against it. But I love it. We all miss it, perhaps only in our weak moments for those bent against, but the loneliness that is taken for granted in America is non-existent in this culture, and several of the others I work with. They just don't have that loneliness. Period. It's hard for them to imagine.

As one of the members of this culture and myself were discussing last night, mothers don't even breast feed their babies... they don't give of themselves, they don't want to be close. Breast feeding is almost taboo (almost, not quite). It's just one symptom of the selfishness and disconnection of our culture.


Anyway, I looked up the lyrics today for that song by Chemical Romance. With the above thoughts in my mind, this song became a profound example of our culture and what we feel, and it filled me with sadness.


-Sing it out,
Boy, you got to see what tomorrow brings.
Sing it out,
Girl, you got to be what tomorrow needs.
-For every time.
That they want to count you out,
Use your voice,
every single time you open up your mouth.
-Sing it for the boys,
Sing it for the girls,
Every time that you lose it sing it for the world.
Sing it from the heart,
Sing it till you're nuts,
Sing it out for the ones that'll hate your guts.
Sing it for the deaf,
Sing it for the blind,
Sing about everyone that you left behind.
Sing it for the world,
Sing it for the world.
-Sing it out,
Boy, they're gonna sell what tomorrow needs
Sing it out,
Girl, they're gonna kill what tomorrow brings
You've got to make a choice,
If the music drowns you out.
And raise your voice,
Every single time they try and shut your mouth.
-Sing it for the boys,
Sing it for the girls,
Every time that you lose it sing it for the world.
Sing it from the heart,
Sing it till you're nuts,
Sing it out for the ones that'll hate your guts.
Sing it for the deaf,
Sing it for the blind,
Sing about everyone that you left behind.
Sing it for the world,
Sing it for the world.
-Cleaned-up corporation progress,
Dying in the process.
Children that can talk about it,
Living on the webways.
People moving sideways,
Sell it till your last days.
Buy yourself the motivation,
Generation nothing.
Nothing but a dead scene,
Product of a white dream.
I am not the singer that you wanted,
but a dancer.
I refuse to answer,
Talk about the past,
Sir and wrote it for the ones who want to get away.
-Keep running!
-Sing it for the boys,
Sing it for the girls,
Every time that you lose it sing it for the world.
Sing it from the heart,
Sing it till you're nuts,
Sing it out for the ones that'll hate your guts.
Sing it for the deaf,
Sing it for the blind,
Sing about everyone that you left behind.
Sing it for the world,
Sing it for the world.
-You've got to see what tomorrow brings!
Sing it for the world,
Sing it for the world.
Yeah, you've got to be what tomorrow needs!
Sing it for the world,
Sing it for the world.

Everything I thought regarding this all was just based on feelings. Keep that in mind.

My first thought was "What is the 'it' that we are supposed to sing about?" It bothered me, because it is so much a part of our culture, this vagueness that sounds deep but ends up meaning absolutely nothing. Sing it. Sing what? It's like, "Just have faith." In what? There is no such thing as having faith without there being something to have it in. So sing it.... sing what? But maybe there is a vague idea of it in there. "Every time they try to count you out, speak up." And so that's it. We are singing for ourselves. Singing to be counted... but counted for what? There is nothing. Just counted because in our culture, we are nothing if we are not individual, and so we are all the same in our pointless attempt to be individual for the sake of nothing but individuality. What do you get? How to be individual just to be an individual? Well. You have to be cut off. Alone. Independent, and disconnected for others. Selfish. It is incredibly selfish to insist on being heard just to be heard.

And then the song just morphs into a complaint about the dead corporate culture that eats away at our children. As if corporations, which provide jobs for people, are the source of the dying sentiment I feel in this song. The very thing the song seems to promote, the fight to be heard just to be heard and an individual just to be an individual, are, I would argue, what create the sense of dying and death that this song rails against. But it seems to want you to fight the wrong thing, mere organizations of people trying to work to stay alive (why?), when the thing that causes the symptoms they want to fight are exactly what they are saying to fight it with. It doesn't work.

Sing it for the world. Sing it for those who will hate your guts. If you have a noble song, these are noble sentiments. But do we?  Sing it for the ones you left behind. But why leave them behind? That's why you are in a dying culture; you left behind the ones you needed to be with, to provide for, to have an obligation to. You've got to see what tomorrow brings. What if it is bad? Because you are taking yourself down the wrong selfish path? You've got to be what tomorrow needs. What is that? I assure you it is not someone singing out nothings at the top of their lungs just to be heard for the sake of being heard, even if there is nothing to be said.  Singing 'it' is just not good enough, and it will be pointless to sing it for boys and girls. There is no help in that, and no better tomorrow for the boys and girls in that. There is just more of a dying hopeless trapped selfish disconnected world of individuals.

And yet the song is upbeat, inspirational sounding. And to my culture, it's an inspiring song. A song of pointless nothingness and blaming organizations of people who are working to provide for another organization of people (their families) or organizations of people who are working for themselves alone, the fact that this inspires my culture and is related to on a deep felt level by my culture... it makes me sad. It seems like a dying culture. It seems like my own culture is dying.

And then the video as well. I can see that the video is part of a bigger picture of more videos along the same theme and with the same actors. But that aside.

I don't know if this is what the na,na,na and Sing videos represent but I like to think that the "killjoys" represent the spirit of youth, imagination, happiness. the little girl represents children everywhere, the "destroyer" represents the strictness of adults, the "scarecrows" represent the "money side" of adults. where all they care is business. and the asian chick represents ignorance when adults see a child with a great mind as just a child.  -colombiansoldier1003 on youtube.

It is. It's like a song directed at children telling them to remain children.