Annotations for SCARECROW

Lyric: Never mind about the shape I’m in
Annotation:
MCR’s song  Every Snowflake is Different (Just Like You) which they performed on the kids show “Yo Gabba Gabba” has a line with a very similar melody and rhythm to this line: “Green fur, blue skin And the very silly way you grin”

Lyric: Bomb, bomb, love won’t stop this
 Bomb, bomb, love won’t stop this bomb
Annotation:
In the context of the album’s concept, these lyrics could be referencing the Helium/Analog Wars. It didn’t matter how passionate they were about their cause, the people fighting against BL/ind still lost. They were still bombed. It could also be in reference to The Girl being a bomb.

Lyric: Heat burns my skin
Annotation:
This lyric could be a reference to thermal burns endured as a result of close contact with a bomb dropped.

Lyric: Love, love, love won’t stop this
Annotation:
I think it’s commenting in general; it’s futile to try and keep your childhood innocence. Nothing can stop this fate, where we are and what’s happening. No matter how much love you have in your heart, this is your end, like many in the Killjoys universe and the real world.

Lyric: Hear the knock-knock-knock when she cries
 We’re all alone tonight
Annotation:
There is a superstition that if you hear three knocks without reason, someone you love will die. The previous line, “make a wish when your childhood dies”, gives this context: This is about watching someone you care for mourn for the person you used to be. Given the context of the Killjoys universe, it’s likely that this “death” happens due to trauma. “We’re all alone tonight” shows how the narrator feels about this: recognizing that they have changed, and that their loved one feels more alone due to this, but also feeling as though they are alone as well.

Lyric: I’ll keep you safe inside
Annotation:
Gerard/Party Poison is saying that they’ll protect the person they are talking about safe from the dangers of the world outside. i believe that they are talking to the girl because the fabulous killjoys (Gerard/Party Poison, Frank/Fun Ghoul, Mikey/Kobra Kid and Ray/Jet Star) are like her parents and they would want to keep their child safe from the dangers of the world “outside”.

Lyric: Move your body when the sunlight dies
 Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow
 Everybody, hide
 Move your body when the sunlight dies
 Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow
 Everybody, hide
Annotation:
This lyric is about how, when an atomic/nuclear weapon detonates, the sky is covered by a massive cloud of smoke and ash, followed by a massive explosion. Obviously, people would try to escape, or “move their body” away from it.

Lyric: See the rust through your playground eyes
Annotation:
Rust is considered a sign of disrepair and decay. ‘Playground eyes’ seems to indicate a view of childlike naivety. To look at rust through playground eyes probably means to look at something terrible with blind optimism.

Lyric: Run, run, bunny, run
 Run, run, bunny, run
Annotation:
This goes along with the theme of ‘running’ away throughout the album. Bunnies run quite fast, so Gerard is telling the listeners to keep running and to do so quickly. Also, ‘bunny’ was the name of bassist Mikey Way’s cat, Bunny Marie Way.

Lyric: We’re all in love tonight (All in love tonight)
Annotation:
Tying in with the last phrase, children grow up learning to love everything rather than the opposite. Also as we age, we tend to get more cold hearted, some greater than others, and soon hate more than we acknowledge to love. We get so scared and defensive that instead of letting people in and learning to love we shut everything out and hate the world. Once again, they tell us to tap into our inner child and learn to love things as we once had when we were younger and not let anyone get left behind. We have to take them under our wing, and show them love, not hatred or violence, because when we were troubled we would need someone there with us to love us and to help us get back up again. Do the same. Growing up doesn’t mean to become a different person; it means to take the person we were as a child and see the world for how it truly is. We take that, and we use what we knew from our younger selves, to better as a person in general and to make it out okay.

Lyric: Watch it grow where the tear stain dries
 To keep you safe tonight
Annotation:
No one ever said growing up would be easy; but no one ever said it would be this hard. To escape the crushing fallout, you have to leave a dream or a part of yourself behind. You loose yourself, because this world isn’t what you thought it was, you’re not a naive little kid anymore. Growing up hurts; you’ll cry over things and you’ll feel pain both emotionally, mentally, and physically. There’s a lot of pain in general that comes with this, so sometimes you break down and cry. There are tears, and where a tearstain dries, you’ll see yourself grow as a person. Because with each tear, with each weep, you grow a better understanding of what you didn’t know before. You grow with each experience. Most importantly, you grow over each obstacle. This makes you a stronger person, because now you know better. Now you know what to do. The knowledge that comes with this is what’ll help keep you safe tonight. Like a plant, each tear drop of water, will only benefit you and help you grow a little more than the last time. What you lost in a fallout isn’t as big as what you’ll grow into.

Lyric: Leave a dream where the fallout lies
Annotation:
A fallout is the zone near to where a bomb is dropped. If you go into the fallout the radiation will likely kill you. This line can be taken literally, since the story of Danger Days takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting after a nuclear explosion- in the fallout. However, it could also symbolize having to leave behind dreams and ambitions in the wake of any kind disaster, failure, or trauma; the fallout of a horrible event.

Lyric: Hold your breath when a blackbird flies
Annotation:
As children, we all had the naive habit of holding our breath while driving over railroad tracks or passing a cemetary, because doing so was rumored to ward off bad luck. Blackbirds are a well-known creature of superstition. They are often linked to death; it is said that if one pecks at your window, someone you know will die. The song has many references to childhood and growing up (make a wish when your childhood dies… see the walls through your playground eyes… etc.) and this line is another. It is an innocent and almost childish response to being faced with death.

Lyric: Everybody, hide your body from the scarecrow
 Everybody, hide
Annotation:
The “scarecrow” represents the bad; keeping you from the good in life, which is exactly what you need to survive. To make sure you don’t get it, it uses what it knows will hurt you the most against you. The “bad” it resembles can be anything, varying from person to person. It can be something/someone you’re scared of, hate, dread, or don’t want to be apart of. Like society, anyone whose ever wronged you , or the demons inside your head. The scarecrow uses this to both physically and mentally wear you down to the breaking point. All in all, the scarecrow represents the bad/the evil in life, that tries to drown you in its darkness. Now tying in with the first phrase, they’re telling you to run from this. Run away, and hide from the evil and the bad; to not let it get to you and bring you down. Everyone needs to get away from this, right here, right now. The repetition stresses the importance of heeding their warning. If you see it with knowledge of that whole killjoy story, the S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W is an extermination unit. When someone dies they can revive the deads into Draculoids, which fight for Better Living Industries. That means that they need to hide the dead bodies from the Scarecrows, so you’re not going to be transformed into something bad. It’s also mentioned in the Killjoys comics, that when they put the Draculoid mask on you, it could be that your sole cannot go to the afterlife.

Lyric: Move your body when the sunlight dies
Annotation:
This song seems to be about growing up, trying to find who you are, and not letting anything bring you down.  The  sun represents the goodness in life. So when there are those times where you feel like everything is gone, when there’s no hope, that’s when the sunlight dies.  They’re trying to tell you that when these times happen, get up and run away from the darkness that’s approaching. Get up and fight. Move your body when the good times end because the sunlight will come again, you just need to keep going and be there for when it does.

Lyric: Make a wish when your childhood dies
Annotation:
When your childhood dies, so does your innocence, and you’re hit with unfiltered truth and reality. It pains you to know things aren’t what you thought they were, and that the world is such a terrible place. You make a wish that everything, including yourself, will be okay in the end.

Lyric: Count to seventeen and close your eyes
Annotation:
Wish it away and hope it’s nothing more than a dream. Count, and pray that when you open your eyes once more it’d only been a nightmare. This is actually a terrible survival technique. The usage of the number 17 instead of 3 (in the common phrase, “count to three”) was to reflect on the earlier line,  “make a wish when your childhood dies.” In most Western societies, once you turn 18 you are legally an adult i.e. not a kid anymore. It could be showing that this song deals a lot with the loss of innocence and having to view the world differently after it. This also has the oddity of asking the audience to count not to 3, not even to 10, but to 17, indicating that they know that this ordeal will be longer, more arduous, and carry more weight than your everyday scary situation; this may very well be the last scare they ever have.

Lyric: Blow a kiss at the methane skies
Annotation:
This is my favourite image of theirs. The idea of saying goodbye to a beautiful yellow sunset (the colour of methane) to then have to go and do what you have to do to live. Blowing a kiss -> blowing a kiss goodbye. Methane is also a greenhouse gas, which causes global warming. This would explain why Battery City is at boiling hot temperatures.

