Annoations for Barrett wilbert weed and ryan mccartan freeze your brain
Lyric: [J.D.]
Annotation:
From the official casting call for J.D: “He is darkly charismatic, compelling, attractive, charming on the outside yet very damaged on the inside. Keen smarts and strong inventive comedy.”

Lyric: I've been through ten high schools, they start to get blurry
No point planting roots, 'cause you're gone in a hurry
Annotation: J.D.’s upbringing has left him with the understanding that human connections are a waste of time, perhaps hinting at the fact he is at the very least a sociopath. He sees no need to make friends because he knows before long his father will force him to leave.

Lyric: My dad keeps two suitcases packed in the den
Annotation: Showing how not just that the condition of his dad’s stay was “only a matter of when” they leave (as according to the next line of the verse), but adding a sad fact that they’ve never really ‘unpacked’ everything to at least settle down. Never had the thought of ‘this could be it; our new home’ crossed his dad’s mind.

Lyric: So it's only a matter of when
Annotation: With his dads business, J.D. gets moved around so often that he has grown to just accept it. He knows it is going to happen sooner or later, so he doesn’t really care to do much because “It’s only a matter of when”

Lyric: I don't learn the names, don't bother with faces
Annotation: Because of his constant moving, J.D. does not think it necessary to make friends when he knows he will eventually have to leave them. He does not believe in developing emotional bonds when he is just going to leave them in three weeks or so. But he clings onto a 7/11, knowing that it would always be there for him to numb out his fears no matter where he may go. This is also a typical mark of psychopathy. JD is obviously portrayed here as lonely, and though he acts disconnected to his lack of connections, it’s easy to see that it bothers him. An unwanted distance from society and other people is often one of the most telling features of a psychopathic personality or of even Antisocial Personality Disorder. This sets up the idea that J.D. has removed himself from others to a point that he doesn’t even feel that he is one of them. This would explain his later anti-society sentiments.

Lyric: All I can trust is this concrete oasis
Annotation: At this point in the musical, all J.D. cares about is the comfort and familiarity of a 7-11 in his hectic life.
He enjoys the 7-11 because it’s a constant. It’s something that never changes no matter where he goes, and he feels like it’s the only thing he can trust not to change. His environment, his house, his school and many other things change on a monthly basis. The 7-11 stays the same, and he feels he can rely on solely that.
The reason why JD loves the 7-11, is because after years of moving around and having to adjust all the time, the store is a constant (as we get to know more in the next few lines).

Lyric: There's a 7-Eleven right there
Each store is the same, from Las Vegas to Boston
Annotation: There are more than 50,000 7-11s worldwide, in 18 countries, so J.D. is never far from another hit of sugar. In the movie, however, it’s called the “Snappy Snack Shack”. In an interview with Playbill, the writers explain the change: Sometimes people ask why we changed the name of the convenience store. In the film, this scene happens in the “Snappy Snack Shack” and in the musical it takes place in a 7-11. The answer is that we’re honoring the source material; it’s 7-11 in Dan’s original screenplay. They couldn’t get permission to set the scene in a 7-11 and were forced to change.

Lyric: Linoleum aisles that I love to get lost in
Annotation: Linoleum is a material used to make things water resistant, which is most likely used in a 7/11.

Lyric: I pray at my altar of slush
Yeah, I live for that sweet frozen rush
Annotation: Looking at the word choice of “pray” and “altar”, 7/11 seems to be a kind of church for J.D. It’s the only thing J.D. really cares about, the only constant in his otherwise-hectic life. J.D. finds comfort and home in the familiarity of a 7/11, just as one would in a church.
Later, as JD and Veronica’s relationship further, we find that instead of ‘worshipping’ the store as a God, JD worships Veronica. Because Veronica can speak and connect with him, while unfortunately a 7-11 can’t.
The comparison of the 7-11 to a church or place of worship is really just a testament to how little other things mean to him. Often times, religion is described as being “everything” to an individual.

Lyric: Freeze your brain
Annotation: The “freeze your brain” sentiment is extremely interesting because it’s telling of JD’s mental state. This is a typical trait of a sociopath such as himself. Sociopathy is a majorly acquired trait typically established through emotional hardship in childhood in addition to certain personality traits. It’s established due in part to an inability to cope emotionally with a trauma. Since JD’s father is destructive and emotionally distant, JD had nowhere to turn when he was put through his mother’s death (especially since he had no friends either). By asserting that the way to deal with this is to “Freeze Your Brain,” JD is revealing that he has become emotionally distant and friendless as a way to deal with pain. This is an almost textbook definition of sociopathy. The line also shows that J.D. uses this as a coping method, replacing emotional pain with physical pain, something he has control over. While others cut or hit themselves for this feeling of physical pain, J.D. uses the brain freeze to achieve this. He numbs out emotion and the world for a moment and supposedly deals with his problems this way, though it is in no way healthy.

Lyric: Suck on that straw, get lost in the pain
Annotation: That’s what she said. Carry on with your analysis of this shockingly in-depth song about JD’s psyche.

Lyric: Happiness comes when everything numbs
Who needs cocaine?
Annotation: J.D. treats his Slurpees as a type of drug, meant to numb him and make him forget all the pain of his past. He’s using it as his form of self harm. Sugar is also widely regarded by most doctors as a drug; it has addicting qualities similar to morphine and heroin.

Lyric: Care for a hit?
Annotation: The way he says this makes it sound as if the Slurpee is a drug, as this is the sort of thing someone would typically say when passing around a joint, or other form of drug.

Lyric: Does your mommy know
Annotation: The Heathers focus lot of their attention and mockery on maturity, such as in “Candy Store”: Let your mommy fix you a snack. Veronica is beginning to adapt to their way of patronisation by calling out J.D.’s relationship (or lack thereof) with his mother.

Lyric: you eat all that crap?
Annotation: Shows how Veronica may have the sheltered life of a teenage kid with parents that are sort of overly protective, indicating how her mom won’t like the idea of her eating ‘all the crap’ or simply put, junk food (the sins of the other students are implied to have touched matters of underaged drinking, underaged sex, violence, and whatnot).

Lyric: [J.D., spoken]
Not anymore
When mom was alive, we lived halfway normal
Annotation: This is the first we hear of JD’s mother dying. As such, growing up without one of his parents would severely damage his mental state. He was emotionally damaged by her death and feels he has been betrayed by her, left alone with his unsupportive father. This would also give the kids at school a good reason to call him “psycho trench coat kid” as children who are abused or neglected are 38% more likely to commit crimes. In the play at this point, Veronica looks to the audience with a shocked face as her jaw drops at this new information.

Lyric: Now it's just me and my dad, we're less formal
Annotation: It’s kind of heartbreaking how in this line J.D. seems to express his belief that what was considered ‘normal’ was merely a formality, a means to look good in the eyes of society. Also giving the idea that perhaps even when his mother was alive, he didn’t truly believe in the idea of living ‘normally’, just going at it for the sake of his mom’s happiness and ease.

Lyric: I learned to cook pasta, I learned to pay rent
Learned the world doesn't owe you a cent
Annotation: These lines illustrate how J.D. grew up earlier than his peers. If we assume that the moving around started when his mother died or when he started high school, then he learnt skills that many kids at his age (17) don’t know. Many (privileged) high school students don’t know how to cook or do laundry, or pay rent. Because of this, J.D. learns that he doesn’t owe anyone anything, given the hardships he has been through. It shows how J.D. was affected by his mother’s death. The line may also imply that he is now forced to pay rent to his father in his own home.

Lyric: You're planning your future, Veronica Sawyer
You'll go to some college and marry a lawyer
Annotation: Earlier in the song, J.D. states that he doesn’t learn names because it doesn’t matter, and his knowing her full name here shows she matters to him (or is starting to). This furthers that Veronica’s probably the first person J.D.’s cared for in a long time, maybe since his mom died. This is a playful jab from J.D., and his tone makes it sound almost like a taunt. It foreshadows his upcoming relationship with Veronica, in a way; while neither of them are aware that the relationship will end (or that it will even start), this prediction of his foreshadows their demise. Even if they were to have a normal teenage relationship, she would eventually go to a good college and desire a normal life. Unlike her, he has no future where he stays in one place. Furthermore, in the first song “Beautiful”, Veronica was looking forward to college as her liberation from high school. In this line, J.D. makes even that sound silly and potentially makes her feel immature for wanting that.

Lyric: But the sky's gonna hurt when it falls
So you'd better start building some walls
Annotation: JD sees Veronica’s big dreams and doesn’t think they’re going to last/believes she’s being naive. However since it’s immediately followed by him telling her to build walls, it seems like he could actually care for her. Even though he thinks she’s maybe being foolish he still doesn’t want her to get hurt. JD has been taught all his life that things aren’t permanent, and he believes that Veronica is going to eventually be hurt when things don’t turn out the way she expects or wants them too. Feeling like people around you don’t have enough protection around their heart or mind is a symptom of abuse, so him suggesting that she find protection for herself is also him trying to rub off on her and show her his rather pessimistic views. The implication of “building some walls” is J.D. telling Veronica to steel herself to being hurt from the “sky falling”. It might come off as genuine concern, but in the tone he says it, it sounds more like a threat or warning. J.D. has definitely built those walls, mostly by distancing himself from people. Putting up walls is also shorthand for putting distance between something and yourself. JD is warning Veronica to step back from her dreams and not leave herself unprepared for attack or failure. When you’ve built walls up you have somewhere to retreat to! JD’s walls are the walls of a 7/11, the only solid, constant thing in his life.

Lyric: Swim in the ice, get lost in the pain
Annotation: Anyone who has held ice in their hand knows that holding it for extended periods of time will numb the spot it was held. As previously mentioned, this is his way of numbing the pain of losing his mother and dealing with his father, of whom he blames for his mother’s death. It could also be a suggestion of how emotionally cold a person he is and the constant distance he has from other people.

Lyric: Shut your eyes tight 'til you vanish from sight
Let nothing remain
Annotation: These lines can be seen as foreshadowing to J.D.’s eventual suicide. Here he wants to disappear permanently, and is expressing this through a desire to achieve numbness and vanish.

Lyric: Shatter your skull
Annotation: This is a reference to his later violent tendencies

Lyric: fight pain with more pain
Annotation: This line reflects the thought processes behind self-harm. It’s curious to see how he uses Slurpees instead of conventional methods to “fight pain with more pain.” As stated in another annotation, it’s probably a good thing that JD got hooked on a place, rather than a person, because there’s something deeply threatening and dark about this line. A reference to self-harm. After getting hooked on Veronica instead, he begins inflicting his inner “pain” on others rather than himself. This line also sums up the way J.D. has acted throughout his whole life. When he’s hurt, he fights back instead of learning to deal with his pain. A lot of people have hurt him and he certainly isn’t popular at Veronica’s school; you can see how this would lead him to the decision to blow up the school. He wants to make sure those kids will never hurt him again.

Lyric: Forget who you are
Annotation: This line implies that JD is very dissatisfied with who he is. This is likely because of his knowledge of his distance from people. He craves an escape from the bad hand life has given him. If he can just forget about all of that, it might be worth living.

Lyric: unburden your load
Annotation: JD references many times that he has a constant load of worry brought upon him because of his father’s job and moving high schools so often. Here he is using a 711 slushie to get rid of that load of worry and pain.

Lyric: Forget in six weeks, you'll be back on the road
Annotation: This line shows J.D.’s contempt for his father and all the moving around they do, something that has had a clear negative affect on his life.

Lyric: When the voice in your head says you're better off dead
Annotation: Another nod to J.D.’s suicide. This is also another telling line about JD as a person. It’s very clear that he’s had suicidal thoughts, and throughout this song he asserts that he engages in somewhat self-destructive behavior. He uses emotional numbness (“freezing his brain”) in order to cope with these kinds of thoughts. Since he has a poor family life and no people to cling to, becoming numb is the only that keeps him from killing himself. This is what makes this line very important. It shows JD as not simply uncaring, but desperate for something to fix him.
this line also suggests that JD might have a psychosis, like many sociopaths do. him hearing actual voices in his head would explain a lot
the line also shows that veronica is special in his eyes. in the start of the song he talks about how how he never opens up and speak about his emotions and now he talk to veronica in a very personal way.

Lyric: Don't open a vein
Just freeze your brain
Freeze your brain
Go on and freeze your brain
Annotation: This means that he uses slurpees to give him a brain freeze as a form of self-harm, as implied earlier in the song, instead of cutting himself. However, it could also be in reference to just straight up committing suicide. He uses numbness and pain to not only keep himself from being self-destructive, but actually dying, which could make these lines a little more desperate.
This is a reference to JD’s method of self harm. Instead of cutting himself or just letting himself bleed to death by slitting his wrists, he chooses to numb out, to not feel anything. While any form of self harm is dangerous, JD isn’t leaving any physical scars, just creating more mental issues for himself.
Opening one’s vein (like an artery) is dangerous, as you’ll most likely bleed to death before you can get any help. This may just be another nod to how JD is mentally shaken and he may just be lacking the will to live, due to his mother’s suicide and his emotionally distant father who practically ignores him as far as we see.

Lyric: Try it
Annotation: How empathetically J.D. says this shows how he really uses this as a coping method for his father’s abuse and mother’s suicide. It is his lifeline, his sense of home. This also could be foreshadowing on how J.D. rubs off on Veronica throughout the play, specifically in the sense of, ya know, murder and such. Two instances are at the end of “Our Love Is God”, when J.D. starts singing, almost persuading Veronica to join him in his psychotic plans before she joins him. Another instance is in “Dead Girl Walking (Reprise)” when Veronica herself acknowledges how JD has affected her, saying “I let his anger fester and infect me”. It could also reflect–since freezing his brain is J.D.’s form of self-harm–that he tries, if inadvertently, to drag her down with him until she eventually tries to kill herself the same way JD does.