The Black Parade - Ranked!

My Chemical Romance is one of my favorite bands of all time!!! I'll be seeing them in San Francisco this year, and they're gonna play The Black Parade in full. I thought I should rank the songs on the album! I'll review each one in the same order as the album, giving each song a ranking from 0 to 10. I'll also talk a tiny bit about what I like or don't like about the song.

To The End

It's a good song. I feel like I'll be saying this about every song on this album...

The lyrics are very good! "Another contusion, my funeral drag / Here's my resignation, I'll serve it in drag" is probably my favorite bit. I also like "when I grow up, I want to be nothing at all." Gerard Way's vocals are really good and expressive. Not much else about it really stands out to me, but it's a solid track and a great opening to the album.

7/10

Dead!

I absolutely ADORE the transition from To The End to Dead!. I can't really listen to either song without playing them together because the transition is so good. It gets rated higher than To The End because I like the lyrics and vocals a bit more and the chorus just hits harder for me.

8/10

This Is How I Disappear

I always forget about this one. I need to give it more attention... I think it is a pretty good track.

7/10

The Sharpest Lives

I really like the muted guitar opening! And the lyrics are super cool! Unfortunately I always forget the lyrics to this one... I need to listen to it more and find more appreciation for it.

I like the "give me a shot to remember" bit. It's also cool how vampires are mentioned. Every major MCR studio album mentions vampires at least once, except Three Cheers... That's crazy, because the black and red aesthetic of Three Cheers is very vampire-y. Gerard is a vampire. But I digress.

8/10

Welcome to the Black Parade

When I was 14, this was on my playlist when my cat died. I miss Tammy so much... AND THE DRUMS ARE REALLY GOOD! The whole thing is really good... I love the way it builds up and gets more heavy. It's a great song and definitely deserves it's popularity! Thanks to this song, sometimes stuff everyday stuff like a door creaking sounds like the G note(the first note of the song). And I start humming the rest of the song to myself.

10/10

I Don't Love You

Gut wrenchingly sad. Makes me cry. I love it so much. My favorite part is at the end, when Gerard says, "When you go, would you have the guts to say / I don't love you like I loved you yesterday". I like it because it's so full of emotion, and the bit where he says "would you have the guts to say" sounds like he's saying it through gritted teeth.

10/10

House of Wolves

I LOVE IT!!! It's on my werewolf playlist. I love the energy of the whole thing. I like the bit where he says "tell me I'm a bad man, kick me like stray". I also like the "ring around the ambulance" part.

9.5/10

Cancer

This song actually makes my heart ache, it's extremely sad. I really like the music video. The lyric "the hardest part of this is leaving you", is a bit cliche, but it's still really sad. I love the piano in this song, too. I really like how much pianos appear in this album.

10/10

Mama

I absolutely ADORE this song. It's one of My Chem's most genius... I could say so much about it. The vocals are amazing, I love the way Gerard enunciates words, and his New Jersey accent really pulls the whole thing together (this goes for ALL of their songs, honestly). The whole song is so amazingly theatrical and dramatic. Definitely my favorite on The Black Parade The pre-chorus is AMAZING! "Well, mother, what the war did to my legs and to my tongue / You should've raised a baby girl, I should've been a better son" are amazing lyrics, especially the second bit. I know a lot of people who can relate to that. I'm cis and I still relate to it a lot... I really love the bit where Liza Minelli sings quite softly, "And if you would call me a sweetheart / I'd maybe then sing you a song", and Gerard Way follows with his dramatic and aggressive voice, "But there's shit that I've done with this fuck of a gun / You would cry out your eyes all along". And then the "We're damned after all" REALLY pulls it all together. IT'S AMAZING!!! ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then... the best part! At the end of the song, Gerard screams and all the guitars and bass and drums stop... and the violin comes in and you can hear someone faintly sobbing in the background. It's INSANE! I love it SO MUCH!

11/10

Sleep

I like it. It's about the night terrors Gerard Way experienced while writing The Black Parade. The band members all stayed in a haunted mansion called The Paramour Estate. It is very dramatic and a good way to follow Mama. And... OH MY GOD! I love the ending guitar. I'm pretty sure Ray Toro plays that part. I LOVE YOU RAY TORO!!!! I wish I could play guitar like him...

9/10

Teenagers

It doesn't deserve to be the most listened to MCR song on Spotify. It's kind of mediocre. Kill All Your Friends should have replaced it on The Black Parade. It doesn't really fit with the album that well and it is very overplayed. It's catchy, though! It's not horrible.

5/10

Disenchanted

This song almost wasn't on the album, but Mikey Way whispered it into the band members' ears while they were sleeping, so that got it in. Thank you Mikey Way! This is a great song. I like the lyric "And as we ran from the cops / we laughed so hard it would sting". The lyrics in this song are in general really good, and the guitar intro and outro is sick.

8/10

Famous Last Words

This song was written by Gerard for his brother Mikey. I love it so much. I dunno if this is cliche, but I want to get the "I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone" lyric from this song tattooed.

9/10

Blood

It's very fun! I like it. I dunno what else to say, it's just a cool song.

8/10

Listen to this album if you haven't!!!

The whole thing is really good, and it's also a concept album, so it has its own story.

I really reccomend Wendigoon's video on it. He explains what he thinks the story is about, and does a great job at it. It's super interesting!