Annotations for Stars AlignBike Thief

Lyric: You’ll never be my son
Annotation:
Not only does this line invalidate the child’s identity, but it distances them from their parents. This line is more than just the parents telling their child they’ll never be a boy; it’s them threatening to cut them off and refusing to see them as their child at all. The finality in saying “never” means the child will have to choose between their identity and their family, since their parents won’t let them have both.

Lyric: [Verse]
Annotation:
Switches to the child’s perspective.

Lyric: It’s cold outside I can’t remember how we got today
 They’re both to busy screaming at each other just to say
Annotation:
This is the same situation that the first lines in the first verse were talking about, but this time (likely) from the perspective of the child. The child knowing that it’s cold outside and describing the situation in the same way implies that the child was roped into this, despite the parents' idea that their child “has done nothing wrong”. The child, who has most likely been dealing with this fighting for a long time, knows that their parents don’t have time for them or simply don’t care, as they’re too busy fighting. The difference between the parents describing their fighting as “yelling” vs. the child describing it as “screaming” could also be their different views of the fighting; while the parents see it as just another normal argument, the child sees their fighting as something more violent and frightening. However, this could literally just be Gerard Way looking for synonyms so the verses don’t sound too repetitive. Oops!

Lyric: That this is not my gun
Annotation:
This makes the nature of the child’s parents' relationship more abusive than initially shown. The parents may be too wrapped up in their own anger to defend themselves if caught being abusive towards the other. They would rather scream and nearly kill each other than try to reconcile and defend themselves to others to keep up an image and fix things. This might be a stretch, but this line may also be a reference to the band’s older song  Gun. I'm never gonna have a son (Don't even have a gun!) She's never gonna have a son (Don't even have a gun!) I'm never gonna have a S-O-N And now I'm never gonna have a S-O-N Even if the lyrics are in a completely different context in  Gun, the idea of never having a son and the parents' insistence on their child never being their son can be seen in that song as well.

Lyric: [Verse]
Annotation:
Probably from the parents' perspective?

Lyric: Run away, run away, run away
Annotation:
Could be the speaker (possibly the child) telling the faded stars to run away so they can leave their idealistic hopes behind and go on with their life. Or, it could literally represent the child running away from home and from their abusive/neglectful and unaccepting home environment. Both can be true; the child is trying to leave their dreams behind so they can more easily run away without their hope for things to get better holding them back.

Lyric: Stars that I watch fade away
Annotation:
Could be literal; as the child is running away from home, the sun is rising and the stars are “fading away”. However, this lyric could also be more figurative. The “stars” are their dreams and hopes for a happy, accepting family that have faded away as they’ve grown older and as their parents have become worse people. Stars fading away could also just be a metaphor for growing up and watching the people you’ve idolized (celebrities, family memories, whoever) become less and less special the more you grow.

Lyric: Now, after all, we have done
Annotation:
If this is from the parents' perspective, this could be an attempt to guilt trip their child. The classic “after all we’ve done for you” sentiment that many parents (sometimes emotionally abusive ones) use to absolve themselves from their role in their child’s anger/misery.

Lyric: Waiting outside, everyone else knew what it is
 We’re both too busy arguing to tell you what it is
Annotation:
Children almost never know the full context behind their parents' fights/separations, but everybody else close to them knows, even from the outside. Though the truth is kept from them because they’re too young to handle it, from the child’s perspective, it seems like a secret that their parents won’t tell them. Again, this could also show the parents' disregard for their own child. If the child is old enough to be confident in their own identity, they’re entitled to know what’s going on in their own home. Therefore, the child being kept out of the loop doesn’t seem like it’s out of care, but rather out of disregard.

Lyric: That girl is not my son
Annotation:
This line further implies that this child is transgender. It’s also more detached than the previous iteration of this line in the last verse. Saying  “that girl” could be in a derogatory sense as well.

Lyric: Come home
Annotation:
The delivery of this line is more firm/aggressive than the previous ones, which could be expressing the parents' anger with their child running away  or with being transgender. This desire for their child to “come home” could be a desire to see them detransition to their assigned gender at birth so they can feel some sense of normalcy and believe that that will stop their fighting and fix their family. They believe their child’s identity is just a phase and that they’ll eventually grow out of it and “come home”.

Lyric: [Outro]
Annotation:
Most likely spoken from the perspective of the child.

Lyric: Though you are not my son
Annotation:
This could imply that the child in this family is transgender and that the parents are unsupportive of this fact. Later lyrics in the second verse support this. The speaker tries to have it both ways; to say that their child has done nothing wrong to cause their fighting and potential separation, but also to insist that their child is not a boy, which invalidates their identity. And if the couple’s fighting is caused by this conflict, this would only make the child blame themselves  more.

Lyric: We’re both too busy yelling at each other just to say
 That you’ve done nothing wrong
Annotation:
When a couple is going through  a divorce and a child is in the mix, the child is often sidelined. Children need reassurance that these things aren’t their fault, as many children of divorce blame themselves for their parents' divorce. These parents, who are too preoccupied with their own relationship, do not go out of their way to reassure their child. Not even to tell them that their fighting is not caused them. This could mean one of two things; either these parents pay little to no attention to their child, or that they really are fighting about their child because they aren’t sure how to properly take care of and support them. Especially given the context of this song and the fact that many lyrics allude to the child being transgender and not supported by their parents, both can be true.

Lyric: It’s cold outside I can’t remember how we got this way
Annotation:
The premise of this song is two parents going through a divorce and the impact that has on their child. When a marriage is on the brink of ending, fights are common and often very untimely. Saying that it’s cold outside could imply that someone (one of the spouses) was kicked out, or they were so unhappy with one another that their anger could not wait until they were in a more private space, which lead to a more public fight in an inopportune spot.

Lyric: Without a sound
Annotation:
A potential reference to My Chemical Romance’s  Drowning Lessons from their first album  I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. Without a sound, I took her down The song is (presumably) about a transgender child whose troubled parents will never truly see them as anything but their daughter. This lyric  could link back to the outro of Drowning Lessons, where the speaker “wishes [her] away”.  This could be alluding to the speaker in this song “wishing away” their past self/the person their parents see and want them to be. Without, without a sound Without a sound, without a sound, and I wish you away Considering the use of water imagery in this song, this could very well be intentional. If not, it’s still pretty cool to think about!

