fall out boy — tiffany blews

i don’t care by fall out boy x

I didn’t start this post as an album review a decade and a half too late…

But here we are. disclaimer that this is full of digressions and might not matter to anyone except for me. I’m not really interested in arguing about who does these things “better,” like those critical at the time did. I love MCR just as much as FOB, and Green Day holds a special place in my heart, but lyrically Pete speaks to me the most, and guess what? I can love more than one band that does similar things for different reasons???

to this day, I do not understand how Folie a Deux was so roundly dismissed and/or hated on by FOB fans. Purists want to act like emo as a genre can’t draw on or include anything else, which I’ve always found obnoxious as hell anyway, so maybe that’s why I don’t understand the hate. But it’s particularly funny to me, because I think in a lot of ways this is one of the darkest albums lyrically with a lot of tragically, aggressively dismal outlooks from Pete on his mental health and suicidal ideation. It’s some of his most honest, rawest truths, but because of the music it’s set to, his fans accused him of selling out instead of listening to what he was saying.

Songs like “27” (so named for the infamous 27 Club, which Pete was just slightly past at the time of writing it), “(Coffee’s for Closers),” “Tiffany Blews,” “What a Catch, Donnie,” “w.a.m.s.,” “20 Dollar Nosebleed,” and “West Coast Smoker,” (over half of the 13 song album) deal heavily with themes of lack of self-worth, the vicious cycle of drug use to deal with depression(both legal and illicit), conflating mental illness with talent, lack of control over his own life, struggling with feelings ungrateful in the face of fame (what does someone so famous/wealthy/well-loved/good-looking have to complain about anyway, cry-baby?!), being accused of using his mental illness as a prop, or faking it for notoriety, unable to find a human connection or not being able to hold onto it when he does, and on, and on, and on, all laced through, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, with this idea that he doesn’t know how to continue living, wants something desperately to show him how to continue living.

It’s someone screaming for help, and given that Pete later discussed much of the inspiration coming from his feeling of the inevitability of the band’s breakup, it’s no wonder. These things are lyrically explicit or discussed in depth in interviews: He saw Fall Out Boy as the thing that had kept him alive past 27 (Pete and his management legitimately thought he would not live past that age). He saw Patrick as someone he was very close to, who understood him, something he regularly says feels impossible to him (what a match/I’m half-doomed, and you’re semi-sweet). And he saw it falling apart (two songs acknowledge how tired they’re getting in their first lines, “The (shipped) Gold Standard” and “20 Dollar Nosebleed” with Sometimes I wanna quit this song and become an accountant now/But I’m no good at math and besides the dollar is downandHave you ever wanted to disappear/And join a monastery, respectively). In “Tiffany Blews,” Pete tells us he’s A caterpillar that got stuck/Mr. Moth, come quick with any luck/A long walk to a dark house/A roman candle heart keep us far apart. He’d made it halfway through this transformation into something or someone else, maybe someone healthier or at least past self-destructive tendencies, and now he’s stuck. He doesn’t know what’s coming next, but he needs it fast because he doesn’t know if he can hold on for it.
(Slightly off-topic, but I can’t help but wonder how seeing Panic! at the Disco’s split might have fucked him up over it even more–thank fuck things went much better for Fall Out Boy in that regard…)(If this is all getting you down, just remember the hiatus ended, and we have several beautiful albums that followed.) (Also off topic, but if you’re an FOB fan and haven’t listened to Pete’s hiatus band’s work, you are seriously missing the fuck out. I’ll do a post on that later…)

But FOB fans are notoriously hard to please, something Pete acknowledges frequently on this album as well as others (on “She’s My Winona” Patrick sings, Even the young ones become irrelevant/They always bring up how you changed/Never the same person when I go to sleep/As when I wake up,) while simultaneously letting them know he doesn’t give a fuck (All of “I Don’t Care”).

I mean, I get that it’s not a perfect album, but it’s so full of pomp and passion, with all these catchy, pop-y choruses that make you wanna sing along at the top of your lungs while racing through the city with windows down (yes, okay, I’m harkening back to Infinity on High, but “Bang the Doldrums” is one of my favourite songs ever, so…) Poignant and tragic or breezy and giddy or maybe sometimes just a little bombastic, but with style. It also is a preview of some of the internal conflict over creative control that led to their hiatus, and the lyrical and stylistic changes from the albums that came after it ended. You can almost divide FOB’s sound into Before Folie a Deux and After Folie a Deux (others will argue that Infinity on High marks that change. I think it has a lot more in common with what came before than what came after, but that’s just me. I could alternately see their career as 3 distinct eras with 1 being PR/EOwYG, TTtYG, FUtCT, 2 being IoH and FaD, and 3 being everything post hiatus thus far, but I digress even further…)

But there are so few artists out there that create an album with such a mishmash of songs and pull it off. I mean, the rock opera anthems, power ballads, funk, 60’s and 70’s pop and rock influences, and whatever the hell “20 Dollar Nosebleed” is (other than absolutely delightful, especially with Brendon’s vocals in there merging beautifully with Patrick’s)–ragtime? IDEK?

There’s so much in these lyrics, from the self-aware struggle for authenticity given their wealth and fame (“Disloyal Order of Water Buffalo”: imperfect boys/With their perfect ploys/Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy). Pete’s self-destructiveness, tempered by impending fatherhood: (“She’s My Wyonna:” The only thing suicidal here is the door/We had a good run/Even I have to admit/Life’s just a pace-car on death/Only less diligent/Hell or Glory/I don’t want anything in between/Then came a baby boy with long eyelashes/Daddy said, “you gotta show the world the thunder!”), and maybe bitterness over the mockery made of his suicide attempts (“West Coast Smoker:” Don’t feel bad for the suicidal cats/Gotta kill themselves 9 times before they get it right.) The politically invective (“20 Dollar Nosebleed:” The man who would be king goes to the/Desert the same war his dad rehearsed/Came back with flags on coffins and said/We won, oh, we won). The absolute tragic (All of “27,” really, but starting off rough with, If home is where the heart is/then we’re all just fucked/I can’t remember.) And the just plain fun (“w.a.m.s.:” My head’s in heaven/My soles are in hell/Let’s meet in the purgatory of my hips and get well, and the absurdly whimsicality of “20 Dollar Nosebleed’s chorus,” Ba ba ba ba Benzedrine, bla bla bla Benzedrine/Ba ba ba ba ba Benzedrine, ahh.

I understand how scary it can be as a fan of a particular musician or band when their sound changes. I get it in a very profound way I’ll touch on later in a different post, because this one is getting out of hand. But if we insist on our artists never changing, then we’re just going to stagnate right along with them. Growth and change can be painful, but it can lead to beautiful things. Folie a Deux was Fall Out Boy going through growing pains, as individuals in their personal and professional lives, and as artists, both together and separately. I am as thankful for it as I am for everything they’ve created and shared with us. Even the few songs of theirs that aren’t to my tastes. Either you accept that you aren’t interested in authenticity so much as playing to your expectations, or you can’t yell at them about betraying you.

what a catch, donnie // fall out boy

Everybody’s out here talking about Fall Guys and my mind keeps goin

did you mean: fall out guys

❤believers never die lockscreens❤

Patrick Stump + Blue

i cannot stress the importance of these photos enough

The Ultimate Mania Theory

Hey, so I’ve had this theory for a long time, and my friend told me I should post it because they think it’s much more believable than the theories they’ve seen, but give me your thoughts?

I THINK MANIA COULD BE PATRICK’S FOLIE À DEUX… HERE’S WHY.

1. Folie à Deux

So, let’s start with explaining Folie à Deux’s back story. Now I’m sure we all know what Folie à Deux’s concept is, but in case you don’t, I’ll clarify and explain it really quick.

As most of us likely know, Folie is Pete’s promise to Patrick he won’t lose himself.

The first mention of this significance is What a Catch, Donnie.

Now Donny Hathaway was a musician who killed himself after claiming people were going to hook his mind up to machines and steal his ideas, which is why the song is called What a Catch Donnie.

Roberta Flack is a woman that Donny got famous doing collaborations with.

In What a Catch, Patrick plays the role of Flack, while Pete plays Donny.

This story also seems to bear mention in other tracks within the album, such as 27.

“My mind is a safe and if I keep it then we all get rich.”

Furthermore, on the cover of Folie, there is a man in a bear suit supporting the weight of a bear upon his shoulders. This is supposed to be representative of Patrick holding Pete up, and Patrick being in the suit showing that Pete isn’t alone or crazy, but they’re alike.

This is also why the album is entitled Folie à Deux.

The madness of two.

2. Truant Wave

Shortly after Folie à Deux’s release, Patrick Stump pursued a solo career. In this time he released an album (Soul Punk), but he also released a lesser known EP, entitled Truant Wave.

Now while this isn’t the main point of me bringing up Truant Wave, it does seem worth mentioning that this album also has a song called Porcelain in it- Which seems to follow an underlying theme that Mania shares- feeling fake to his audience.

More importantly however, there is a song called Big Hype that’s also on the EP, which while it could easily be taken as Patrick showing distaste for Folie à Deux getting such negative feedback, it also seems to speak of a sort of sporadic mood change.

“Big hype,

Big letdown.

Though it’s easy to forget if you keep it on the ground.”

And though, while I don’t think it’s extremely likely it was unintentional, but Patrick does have synthesia, the album’s art also consists of a certain color that is acknowledged as the awareness color for bipolar disorder; Green.

3. Mania, and how it all connects.

In the lyrics of Hold Me Tight Or Don’t, Patrick sings the line

“And when your stitch comes loose,

I wanna sleep on every piece of fuzz,

And stuffing that comes out of you.”

Now, referring back to our knowledge of what the Folie album cover stands for, this could be paying tribute to Patrick’s suit he’s depicted in. Saying that if Patrick falls apart, Pete will be there for him, just as Patrick always was.

Now, in the album Mania, it consists of a very sporadic sound. Very dependent on quick pace changes and mood swings. Representative of no other than Mania, or Manic Depression, or Bipolar Disorder. As is seemingly capable of being correlated to- you guessed it- Big Hype.

If this seems like a stretch, however. Let’s refer to MANIA’S album cover. It’s a wave.

Like Truant Wave.

This is why Young and Menace is so slow paced and then fast all the sudden, why the chorus to Hold Me Tight is a contradiction in and of itself, and why so many other songs on the album seem to follow this narrative.

That is why I think of Mania as Patrick’s Folie à Deux. Patrick’s promise to Pete. A note to Patrick’s mentality instead of Pete’s.

If you enjoyed this (if anyone even read it),I would be more than happy to write more, I have plenty other theories to share! (Soul Punk, Allie, Headfirst Slide, Saturday, etc., etc) Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

-Allie