I was listening to Spotifyâs Emo Forever playlist, partly to celebrate MCRâs impending return and partly out of pure nostalgia. Thereâs a lot of good music on there, and the emo era produced a lot of great bands and singles. But something struck me about the content: a good many of the songs included were love songs.Â
This really isnât surprising, honestlyâprobably at least 75 percent of all music produced is about romantic love. Iâm not sure how religious songs and hymns would affect that statistic I just pulled out of thin air, so weâll stick with non-religious music for now. Suffice it to say, romantic love is a popular song topic. Itâs been popular in every era and genreâcue up any All Out [Insert Decade Here] playlist on Spotify and love songs will dominateâand emo music is no exception. From early hits about lost love (All-American Rejectsâ âSwing Swingâ) to peak emo ballads about enforced separation (Paramoreâs âcrushcrushcrushâ or We The Kingsâ âCheck Yes Julietâ) itâs clear romance was on the minds of many emo bands.Â
They did write songs about romance, donât get me wrong. Itâs hard to argue that âI Donât Love Youâ or âThe Ghost of Youâ are about anything but. And yet theyâre not really love songs. âI Donât Love Youâ puts the spotlight on a troubled and unhealthy relationship (though whether thereâs hope for reconciliation is up for interpretation) while âThe Ghost of Youâ takes us deep into the heartbreak of someone who has lost their partner. Even their more straightforwardly romantic songs contain cracks in that sweet and shiny veneer; âIâve got a bulletproof heart, youâve got a hollow-point smileâ hints at defensiveness thatâs come up against the one person able to crack it in a world demanding you live for the moment because you might not get too many more of them.Â
But those songs are just blips on the radar. MCRâs real interest lay in other aspects of the human experienceâthe darker aspects, yes, but often not related to romance. The Black Parade gives us âI Donât Love You,â but itâs presented alongside songs about self-loathing (âDead!â, âHouse of Wolvesâ) self-destruction and destructive relationships (âThe Sharpest Livesâ) war (âMamaâ) PTSD (âSleepâ) death (âCancerâ) fear that the next generation will self-destruct (âTeenagersâ) nihilistic despair (âDisenchantedâ) andâfinallyâacknowledgment that with all its pain and horror and heartache, life is worth continuing (âFamous Last Wordsâ). Even on Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, where two lovers are shot to death and one returns for vengeance, romance takes a backseat to the all-consuming fury of the main character.Â
And honestly, I think thatâs part of why My Chemical Romance is rightly considered a musical legend.Â
That isnât to say I donât like romance in my fiction, or that I think all stories would work better without it. I love romance, when itâs done well. Big Eden is, at its core, a queer romantic dramedy, and itâs one of my favorite movies. The romances between Klaus and Dave and Hazel and Agnes were high points of the first season of The Umbrella Academy for me. Iâm not opposed to romance, and Iâm not opposed to a focus on it.Â
But thereâs so much more to life than just romance, and thereâs so much more to MCRâs music than romantic songs, tragic or no. Hell, one of their most tragic love songs, âThe Light Behind Your Eyesâ is about a love thatâs completely platonic (âSo long to all my friends/Every one of them met tragic endsâ). MCR didnât just write songs about love, or lost love, or unrequited love. They wrote songs about life. They wrote about the darkest aspects of life, the darkest moments of being, and they turned those moments into something magnificent and stark and life-affirming.Â
The emo era gave us a lot of great songs, and a lot of fantastic bands. But many of them were just thatâbands. My Chemical Romance was a phenomenon.Â
Thereâs a reason for that.Â