My Chemical Romance's I Don't Love You

I've given myself the task of writing about one song a week for 2024 because, well, I think it'd be fun.

My Chemical Romance's I Don't Love You

We're not entirely out of pop territory yet, and we're definitely going back in, but let's have a bit of a breather this week.

We have all made fun of My Chemical Romance at some point in time. I mean, the ones who are honest, have. (Except, hilariously, for famous crank Robert Christgau, who gave "The Black Parade" an honorable mention.) I used to shit on them all the time. "My Chemical Romance is a drama-whore band." Quote by me, probably. (Which isn't even true. Well, I mean, for the band themselves. Gerard Way seems like a nice guy. And, if I'm talking about the fans, well, all fans are drama whores. I mean, I listen to Destroyer, for god's sake.)

But this changed all of a sudden when I was struck by the bridge to the chorus of the Romance's "I Don't Love You", which goes

When after all this time that you still owe,
you're still a good-for-nothing, I don't know;
so take your gloves and get out,
better get out ... while you can.

I thought, Where the hell have I heard that before? The answer may have came in the next few hours, or the day after: it's reminiscent of Kanye, namely 2010's "Runaway": "Baby, I got a plan: run away as fast as you can." Same feeling: that of fading love, followed quickly by repulsion, mainly at the singer and not the subject. Which led me to think: how...influential is MCR?

Well, influence is kind of a two-way street: the artist is influencing, and they are influenced by everything around them. We tend to whiten out the "everything" part, gowning the artist in light as if they are the sole creator of a universe. So it's entirely possible this kind of thinking - the anger, the self-pitying, the loathing - was a natural development in American music. "Black Parade" is 2006? Around the time of the popularity of The Killers and Gym Class Heroes. But who among them were so ambitious with their sound? to be so thoroughly un-local and grand with their vision? That was the surprise: that emo was much more than a person battling their personal demons, it was, in a sense, a grander struggle between the self and the world, perhaps the greater universe. So I must give MCR their due, and perhaps one day I will come back to "Black Parade".

But, "I Don't Love You". This song, unlike many of the others in the album, probably for its lyrical approach. It may be worthwhile to hear this country version of the song to understand its characteristics, that it's not just another screamer. The first thing you notice is how much the lyrics and the singing drive the song, which, I know, is an odd thing to say, but this is the same album where "Welcome to the Black Parade" and "Teenagers" are singles. When you think about it, this is a little unusual. Usually emo songs are played blisteringly loud to render the listener as numb as they emotionally feel. (I feel like Huey Lewis here.)

There aren't many good ways to scream a pentameter; they demand time. Thus the instruments quieten down a bit during the verses, rather than the other way around, so we notice the lyrics follow the same pattern as the Bananaramas' song: beginning in the very dramatic present, where our narrator threatens an unknown, "Don't ever think I'll make you try to stay", followed up in the second verse with reflections on the past. It's interestingly the reverse-"Mamma Mia" (another reference to that damn song!), where, instead of a return back to love, there is only downfall. That about describes the 2000s so far: there are more songs about the failures of love than its successes. No wonder the successive generations are so chock full of doomers.

Still on the same topic of narrative, that little detail, "Take your gloves and get out", seems sufficient enough to put the listener there, in the picture.

Of course the lines "Sometimes I cry so hard from pleading, / so sick and tired of the needless beating" are heart-wrenching, but let's focus on the following "But baby, when they knock you down and out / is where you oughta stay." No idea what the heck this means. It reminds me of The Clash's "I'm Not Down": "I've been beat up, / I've been thrown out, / but I'm not down." Our empathy goes out to some hero, either our narrator or the subject of his song.

Then the chorus: "When you go, would you even turn to say: / I don't love you, like I loved you, yesterday?" which has a pretty turn of "d" sounds. Believe the second line is (in meter) short-long-long-short-long-short-long-short-long-long-long, which really shows how stretched that "yesterday" is, emphasizing how romanticized that prior time was. It's a pretty emotional line, precisely because of how confrontational it is. A very different kind of exorcism of love, in comparison to the 'Ramas.

I wish more of MCR's discrography was more like this song, i.e. patient, painterly. (Given a cursory search, I guess "Disenchanted" is what I'm looking for.) It's odd to call "The Black Parade" an odd little album. Feels like there should be more albums in this vein as ambitious, but, alas, here we are, though I bet it's more my unwillingness to dive deep into that genre. Or, it was the perfect storm of Gerard Way's self-awareness and ambition, both qualities lacking in a genre zealous for authenticity and self-loathing. (2022's "The Unravelling of PUPTheBand" has echoes of MCR, at least as far as angst/autobiography goes.) I believe MCR got a bit of flak for this album, so perhaps it scared off some admirers, a chilling effect akin to Black Flag's "My War". But I find my own conclusion questionable: emo may have been offended by "Black Parade", but beauty was not.