Can a song save your life?

The musician as therapist, the singer as a saviour.

In a literal, practical sense, the answer is obviously no, but can a song—music itself—be a lifebuoy in times of distress? Definitely. What about fan objects? Icons in the basest of terms, celebrities, or human brands that become avatars and come to symbolize something bigger, is it to their credit? Is it now part of their job, so to speak?

Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year, Fall Out Boy

It’s a rhetorical question, naturally. It’s something I’ve seen more and more and more of. The transference of devotion to music itself to the person, the human brand presented to the public.

It isn’t a new occurrence, the phenomenon started to gnaw at me when reading a 1997 interview/conversation between Brian Molko and Dave Grohl;

Brian: "I get love letters, but I also get letters from really f***ed up teenagers. Sometimes the letters go, 'Thank you, cos when I listen to your records I feel like there's a friend for me out there somewhere', and sometimes it's as extreme as 'When I listen to your records, I feel like I don't have to cut myself as much as I would if I didn't.' And that f***s with your head, because you start wondering about what sort of responsibility you have - when, in fact, you don't.”

— Melody Maker, 1997

It wasn’t much later that My Chemical Romance was formed for the express purpose of “saving lives” — so this responsibility was intentionally shouldered by some. I don’t know that MCR, or any other band with such ambitions, would know what they signed up for, the yokes of responsibility that weigh down their shoulders.

via Steve Carlson, San Francisco-based photographer.

I don’t have a problem with the concept of lifesaving music: I’ve been there.

I’ve long held that Linkin Park’s debut album has a special place in my own life. These were those salad days of Napster, and I had downloaded the full album and painstakingly recorded it on cassette, with the volume on blast and tape recorder pressed to the speakers. The album itself was on my to-buy list, but I needed a portable copy, and I only had a ratty Walkman.

The album kept me company during a trip to visit my dad—it ended up being the last time I saw him since he chose to disown me. The album kept me company and allowed me to rage internally, and privately, keeping the chaos under wraps when necessary.

I didn’t know much about the band members themselves, I somehow absorbed the knowledge that there were rough childhoods in their pasts which I thought was the trigger for the rage, survival songs that served as smoke signals, telling anyone listening that they weren’t alone.

I don’t know if this was ever a plan for them, putting a soundtrack for breakdowns. The track-by-track done for the 20th anniversary revealed that some of the strife in the music was a direct response to difficulties during recording. The repeated “shut up” line of One Step Closer was directed at their producer, not at their past tormentors.

But that doesn’t take away from the album’s fond place in my past. It kept me afloat when I needed it.

If the MCR origin story is to be believed, they were formed at the same time that I was rewind-repeating my DIY bootleg. It was a last-ditch effort of a band, inspired by what was witnessed during 9/11, they now had a purpose, and that was to save lives.

The 2006 documentary Life On The Murder Scene tracked their beginnings to their major label debut and hammered home their purpose.

“We’re definitely a band that wants to save your life.” - Frank Iero

“This band has a way of saving lives, it keeps us alive.

“The first time it saved my life was when I was super depressed and on a lot of antidepressants and I wasn’t going to do anything with my life. The second time it saved my life was when I was an alcoholic and I was suicidal.

“It saved my life and it’s there to save other people’s lives.” — Gerard Way

2006 is also the year that the Daily Mail started its war on them. It was a proxy war on “emo” itself, but MCR was their chosen target. It reached a zenith in 2008 when they blamed the band and the “sinister cult of emo” for a 13-year-old girl’s suicide.

They even spun some mythology of their own, claiming, “The Black Parade is a nickname for the place where Emo fans believe they will go when they die,” which is not only bizarrely incorrect but revealing of how alternate realities can be spun so easily. “The Black Parade” was the band persona that MCR adopted for their 2008 concept album, not a promised land that fans were sold on. They were the Black Parade.

Enough local British fans were upset that they set up a protest by the DM offices, which was certainly a nice thought, but I don’t know that the solution is to suggest that emo is “the answer” as some fans did, saying you could recover from self-harming habits thanks to MCR, or as the protest sign suggested, that they would be saved. It’s that type of evangelism that allows the pendulum swings to get wider and wider.

Your mileage may vary, as they say. Don’t push your personal panacea on every skeptic. MCR will not “save” anyone who doesn’t want to be, who doesn’t have an interest in them, or who already opposes them.

One of the signs from the May 31, 2008, London protest.

But it is bizarre that MCR was so targeted when they are one of the groups that have been the most vocal about saving people. I would dare to say their most tattooed lyric is “I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone” from Famous Last Words. It’s not a chorus that suggests death as the answer.

On the emo-flipside, there’s Fall Out Boy, another band that was also a magnet for those seeking purpose. In part due to bassist/songwriter Pete Wentz spilling his guts online with regularity. There was no 4th wall from the start, and the lines were erased and redrawn consistently, with the rollercoaster ups and downs that he disclosed repeatedly.

One of the recurring themes is suicidal ideation, with select lines also making their way into lyrics.

i was gonna cut my wrists and tie a bow around them- that would really be the best present. the card would say "don't open until you're all alone". it's a good thing i'm a coward or you would be celebrating my birthday in the coroner's office. — June 4, 2002

My wrists feel like they’d slit themselves if I let them, they want out (so do I). — July 16, 2004

my wrists are only black and blue cause i don’t got the balls. nothing gets you ready to have every single word dissected and put under a microscope. i got ringing in my ears but none on my fingers. i got sunsets in the veins on my wrists.— Sept 2, 2004

wrapped a ribbon around my wrist so id have something to open at christmas. im mostly joking but some days i’d love to be just like everyone else. — Sept 23, 2004

the best way to make it through life with hearts and wrists intact is to realize "two out of three arent so bad". — May 17 2006, Blogspot

These posts served as crumbs for fans/friends/enemies/casual bystanders. This level of transparency was not without other side effects, like some fans clinging to the depression narrative.

Wentz touched on this push-pull dynamic, calling it folie à deux (and also became an album title) something that existed between him and the listeners,

YouPutTheFunInFuneral blogspot

The flaw in this is that the performer and listener do not share the same madness.

These imaginary social worlds (another term I’m fond of) are heavily weighted toward the dreamer, the fans who construct social worlds supplemented by what could be seen. There can be a shared madness among fans, but by default, it would always be lopsided between fan object and fan. Especially if one party believes they owe their life to the other.

Attracting attention from troubled fans took its toll on Wentz himself, who told Rolling Stone in 2008, “I felt like I was being Pete Wentz for everybody else, and I didn’t have Pete Wentz to turn to.”

This is reminiscent of Molko’s quote about responsibility. It can be difficult to care much about the people behind the human brands, and the champagne problems of celebrities, but this also says something about us, the audience.

What does it mean that so many of us no longer credit music itself, but instead transfer that power onto celebrities?

There is a felt connection, but it’s with an unstable, unknowable crowd/fan object, where the thrall comes with a monetary cost, most of the time.

This all supplements my thesis of fandom consecration, in this case with fans ascribing saviour status to their fan object, framing them as holy in their capabilities. The doctrine isn’t written down, but it is still there.