I love remembering important phases of my life. I mean, who doesn’t? Sometimes, all we need it’s time to reflect on our best memories and the path we followed until this present moment. I bet that, if you’re reading this, you probably had an emo phase before — or even never got out of it — and are willing to listen to and learn more about that good old music again.
That’s why here are five suggestions of emo songs that will make you feel nostalgic. So, get your eyeliner on and come with us on this 2000s rock scene journey!
- “Welcome to My Life” by Simple Plan
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There’s nothing better to start this thread than the 2004 song that every misunderstood teenager scribbled at least once in their school notebook. “Welcome to My Life” is part of Simple Plan’s album “Still Not Getting Any…”, a title which means that, although they were very popular, they were still not respected as they should. Pierre Bouvier explains in an interview for Songfacts that some tracks of this album, including the one in this list, were inspired by high school experiences and written by him and Chuck Comeau, the band’s drummer. When asked about how the idea for the song came up, Bouvier said: “For ‘Welcome To My Life,’ he [Chuck] asked me, ‘What about a song called ‘Welcome To My Life’ that’s about how things are difficult and if you ever felt that way, well, welcome to my life?’“. For all my fellows labeled as different out there: this song is for you!
- “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day
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Rolling Stone’s Decade-end Readers’ Poll’s “Best Single of the ’00s” deserves a special place in the emo/pop-punk scene. Considered by many to be Green Day’s best work, “American Idiot” (2004) is a concept album, which brings the adventures of a rebel teenager growing up, known as “Jesus Of Suburbia”. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” follows our protagonist after leaving the place he was raised, going into a wild night out — described in the track “Holiday” and feeling all the weight and sadness of our miserable world the next morning. The music video was directed by Samuel Bayer, who also directed “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. Talking about his idea for the video clips on MTV, he said: “[…] ‘Holiday’ is the wild trip that got us here. It was about living your life and partying as if there’s no tomorrow. But ‘Boulevard’ is the tomorrow. And it’s a really dark, gray, desolate landscape. It’s a graveyard.”. But don’t worry, we’re not walking this road alone anymore.
- “Sugar, We’re Going Down” by Fall Out Boy
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It wouldn’t be emo of me to not include a song about a hopeless teenage relationship, especially when it’s a Fall Out Boy’s one. In 2005, along with the album “From Under the Cork Tree”, the band released its single “Sugar, We’re Going Down”, which talks about being madly in love with someone, but, at the same time, meaning nothing to them. The chorus makes that very clear by saying they’re going “down down in an earlier round”, which means they’re falling apart before even trying. The song, by the way, was supposed to follow the same path. During a Rolling Stones interview, Patrick Stump, Fall Out Boy’s vocalist, confessed he started to compose the song just for fun, but ended up liking it: “[…] there was something about the rhythm of it and then I was like, ‘Hmm, that actually might be too good for just a shitty punk song.’”. Thank God he realized that!
- “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” by Panic! at the Disco
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The year 2005 was really great for the emo community. Panic! at the Disco’s album “A Fever That You Can’t Sweat Out” can prove this point by giving us the famous song “I Write Sins Not Tragedies”, a tragic — or rather sinful — story of a marriage ceremony that went very wrong. Our narrator, Brendon Urie, the vocalist of the band, represents the thoughts of the groom, who hears gossip between a waiter and a bridesmaid about the bride being unfaithful to him. He faces, now, the decision between ignoring what he heard and still getting married or believing it and figuring out a rational solution to the setback. During an interview for Coup the Main Magazine, Brendon said the song was written by the former guitarist of the band, Ryan Ross, and inspired by personal experiences: “Yeah, Ryan’s girlfriend cheated on him.” Well, people out there always say the best songs come from the worst stories, don’t they?
- “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance
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Finishing this list without including the most remarkable emo anthem would truly be a crime. “The Black Parade” (2006) was the most defining piece of work for My Chemical Romance, for which they can be thankful for a big part of their success to this day. Influenced by Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” and Queen’s, “A Night at the Opera”, the third album of MCR, is a rock opera, which tells the story of its main character “The Patient”, diagnosed with cancer, and his journey to encounter death following a parade to hell while remembering the love lost. The song in discussion describes the process of dying and finding out what’s beyond life. For the vocalist Gerard Way, death can be nothing more than the expression of the strongest memory you have, and, for our protagonist, it was a memory of his father taking him to see a marching band and confiding in him the mission to be the redeemer of the miserable. Throughout the song, the lyrics tell us that, no matter if one is dead, the memory they left behind “will carry on” through the living. During an Alt Press interview, Way stated that “The Black Parade” was their “plugging into that nihilistic view of the world yet being funny about it.” Funny or sad, you have to admit: you still get triggered by the G note, right?
Wow, that was a true ‘00s ride! It feels really good to remember some of our most beloved songs – from Simple Plan to MCR – and vibe with them. Actually, it kind of makes it seem like they were playing on the radio just yesterday while we were screaming those lyrics at the top of our lungs. Now, tell me: did you know all these facts? I hope you learned something new today and felt as nostalgic as I did. Maybe, you can become emo all over again after reading this.
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The article above was edited by Bárbara Vetos.
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