Jamie Parslow

To start off, this album was an incredible mix of post-emo angst, a Little Rock opera inspired by Pink Floyd’s, “The Wall”, Green Day, and a million other references I don’t have time to get into, but you get the starting points here. This song was sadly left behind.

To begin: The sound of bombs hitting in the distance and the first few notes of the song indicate war. In my version I would have set the time period of the music video in WW1. Medic vehicle speeds off, camera above flying in, bombs burst in the distance.

First verse: Inside the vehicle, singer/Gerard lies there, center, bleeding to death. Sings to camera the first lines. “Mama we all go to hell.”

Second verse: Surgeons table, surgery begins. Still singing to camera, but this time losing blood, hard. Panic sets in both on his face and the surgery team’s. “We’re losing him” someone mouths, his eyes close.

“And when we go don’t blame us...” First chorus: The world flips over on a turnstile, like a machine. The whole band, in the first circle of Dante’s hell, plays. Possibly riding Charon’s boat.

Visually, this hell is part and parcel Heironymus Bosch’s depiction of Dante Alighieri’s epic work, intermixed with the animation style of #modestmouse’s “Float On” music video. Dark, surreal, and with souls clambering at the boat, much like Hades heading home in “Hercules”.

For every chorus interlude, we delve further and further into a new depiction, or circle of hell. It could be a depiction of Lust, of Gluttony, or of Heresy, but with each new depiction the band plays on, following their sins until we reach treason, the 9th circle.

Third verse: The burial. This one is prett self-explanatory, but during this verse, a family encircles Gerard’s remains in his coffin. He continues to sing as he’s buried, peeking in on his body as it’s lowered into the Earth. A final drop of dirt is thrown by a priest.

“Well mother what the war did to my legs and to my tongue...” Second version of hell. We’re a little deeper now, Ingratitude. The group push great boulders around, eyes gouged, legs festered. He speaks, but with half a tongue, pleadingly.

Second Chorus: Once again, like a 6-shooter revolver, the world spins and the band plays on into its next circle. Playing for a concert of demons, the damned in the background carrying boulders on their backs, circling a never ending mountain, they play on as flames rise.

Third Chorus: Another revolution of the screen after “That’s right.” Anger. Pure violence. Eternal combat plays in the background as the band falls ever further into the pit. Swords swing, the gnashing of teeth, the pure essence of malevolence plays on.

Bridge: Now the band keeps falling without stopping, slamming into each layer of dirt and earth, background scenery changing in some parts. The winds of souls, like ribbon flow behind them. The lustful gusts blowing, the violent fighting, until finally...

Cold darkness. She comes into view on screen. Three heads, blue, but with a sweet voice. Mama, so it were. The devil himself, sung as the mother, in an homage to the art style of Pink Floyd’s, “The Wall.” She reaches out sweetly, but the heads in the ice tell a different story.

The final verse: Gerard and team play on in their final destination, almost defiantly, as if rejecting their reality. The multiple circles come back to screen, like ghosts, reminding them how far they’ve fallen. This being their final stand...

The beast writhes, refusing to give in. One by one she swallows up the band members, getting chewed up and spit out with each passing moment, furious and enraged...

Until finally, as the song peters out, and Gerard, being the last member, screams out, he is picked up, swallowed out, and we land on him, sobbing, head also in ice, surrounded by his fellow traitors and cohorts.