#I love you in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

deancoded-deangirl · 1 year

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here’s why hum hallelujah is fall out boy’s best song, no contest or competition.

under the cut because it’s long.

hum hallelujah comes from infinity on high, which is one of fall out boy’s best albums-- commercially speaking, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, compared to FUTCT’s peaking at number nine, and FAD at number eight. IOH charted top five worldwide, even making the list for that year’s top 50 albums.

Fall out boy is well known for two things: patrick stump’s incomprehensible vocals, and pete wentz’s iconic and nuanced lyrics. it’s no secret that TTTYG and FUTCT (et al) were filled with both of those things, but I don’t think that anything hit quite as hard as infinity on high, and more to the point, Hum Hallelujah.

see, hum hallelujah does something that all of their songs do: it takes metaphors, analogies, common phrases, and twists them. it makes them into something new with so many layers that the english major in me spins. there’s no right or wrong answer about interpreting the lyrics, because so many layers are built into it, a truly multifaceted song. But it adds something else. Hum Hallelujah adds religion into it, as a core part of the song.

during this dissection, i’m going to be treating the “I” in the song as a narrator, and “you” as the listener/audience, although you can substitute the “you” to mean a separate third person, and that the audience is merely privy to the story.

we start hum hallelujah off with:

“It's all a game of this or that, now versus then Better off against worse for wear“

listeners have probably heard someone being asked or told that it is a choice between this or that. that’s the common phrase we all know. fob adds now versus then, and follows it up with “better off against worse for wear”. so now the choice is not this or that-- it’s “do you want to be better off or worse for wear?” and those are the two options that the narrator sees happening. Their common theme? The narrator and listener are separated. When someone leaves, you are either better off or worse for wear, but it’s not until they’re gone that you’ll know.

“And you're someone who knows someone Who knows someone I once knew I just want to be a part of this“

we’ve all heard that before. “i knew someone who knew someone” etc. fob adds to it. the stretch between the narrator and whoever it is is a gossamer thin thread, but they want to be part of it so badly, they are desperate. another common phrase flipped and made new.

“The road outside my house Is paved with good intentions“

The common adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” is here. The listener is well aware of what the implication is. The narrator’s house is hell, without even needing to be told. This is the first instance-- but by no means the last-- of Hum Hallelujah’s religious inspiration.

“Hired a construction crew 'Cause it's hell on the engine“

and they complete the above phrase, but with a choose your own adventure of what it could mean. Is the narrator trying to fix up hell? Is the narrator hiring a construction crew because he’s trying to get out of hell and his car can’t make it? Is it simply another play on the phrase?

The first, but by no means the last.

“And you are the dreamer and we are the dream I could write it better than you ever felt it“

they take a step back from the religion. now we go back to futct’s fundamental lyrics, about being lonely and disconnected from love. You would think that the dreamer would know the feeling better than the dream. After all, how can a dream know the feelings of the dreamer? And yet there is this smug phrasing that implies that the narrator is just that good.

and though this is the first mention of lyrics that will tie into hum hallelujah’s ultimate theme of desperate love, not a single line outside of that scope feels out of place in the song.

“So hum hallelujah Just off the key of reason“

when someone hums, obviously they’re going to be in a key, if not the key of the song, and the narrator says just off the key of reason. Does he want the listener to be reasonable? Or is the narrator saying that the reader is not reasonable? You could say he’s telling the listener to hum it, and therefore saying that the listener shouldn’t be reasonable, but the point is there’s so many dimensions to these lyrics. There’s so many different dimensions, and no necessarily wrong way, but the rest of the song leads the listener into one specific viewpoint.

“I thought I loved you, it was just how you looked in the light“

a common trope in love stories is that how someone looked in a particular lighting made someone else think of them differently. it also could refer to new information, something shines a new light on them. it could be a trick of the light. the narrator thought he loved the person, but it was fleeting, it was fair-weathered, it was temporary.

“A teenage vow in a parking lot 'Til tonight do us part“

These lyrics strengthen the argument that the last two lines were about temporary love. A teenage vow-- teenage love is always shifting, always evolving. A parking lot is no place to vow permanence. And then they will part after tonight. it’s a play on wedding vows, making a mockery of the permanence of those.

“I sing the blues and you swallow them too“

now, i’ve read dissections that say this refers to Pete’s drug use, and that fits in so I won’t talk about it here, but also because I’m speaking to the song as a whole. So far, this narrator has referred to themselves as fickle, temporary, and now blue. And the listener swallows the blues. The listener is eating up the sad emotions that the narrator provides. The use of the word “too” adds another level to this line. An implication is that it is an active choice of the listener to swallow them. The narrator is adding that as a statement of fact, not suggesting that the listener swallow his blues, but saying that the listener already does.

“My words are my faith, to hell with our good name“

here we go back to the religious symbolism. similar to the first pre-chorus, the narrator is talking about hell. He sings the blues, he gave a teenage vow, but his words are his faith. It seems almost as though the narrator doesn’t believe anything good could come out of his words. They’re his faith, and -> to hell with their good name, because of that. A tie-in to the “the road outside my house is paved with good intentions”. The narrator lives in hell. To hell with their good name.

“Remix of your guts, your insides x-rayed“

the narrator is dissecting the listener now, and nothing is hidden. everything is exposed. A remix is more commonly used in music terminology, and so the narrator seems to be saying that the song he is singing is what is exposing the listener.

“And one day we'll get nostalgic for disaster We're a bull, your ears are just a china shop“

A bull in a china shop-- another well known phrase. Naming that they are the bull and your ears are a china shop (which is where my belief that “you” refers to the listener/audience instead of a separate third person comes from), right after saying they’ll get nostalgic for disaster. One day they’ll get nostalgic for the current disaster. Because the narrator is singing the blues-- and therefore the person swallowing them is listening-- the implication is that the current disaster is the relationship between the narrator and listener. the implication is also that, to the narrator, the relationship is parasitic: the narrator provides nothing but destruction.

Not only that, but you can only get nostalgic for things you have left behind. The narrator is telling the listener that he will leave.

“I love you in the same way There's chapel in a hospital“

In what way is there a chapel in a hospital? The narrator brings us back to the religious theme, and gives us two lines rife with nuance. The narrator loves the listener in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital, and so you have to think: who is the chapel in a hospital for? why do people go? when do people go?

I’ll give you a hint. A chapel in a hospital is for desperate people. Someone they love is in the hospital and they are appealing to a higher power. Now, you could tell me that someone who is religious would go to a chapel right off the bat anyway, but given the nature of this song-- how it is taking religious symbolism and turning it on its head to indicate that the narrator isn’t good-- I believe that the narrator is referring to the people who go to chapels because they’re desperate. The people who are appealing to someone they might not even believe in because it’s their last hope.

And then we go back to the desperate love feeling from the chorus. Loving someone in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital is not permanent, and it’s not a good foundation. It’s built out of the wrong emotions. Further to the point, once the loved one is better, a person who doesn’t believe isn’t going to go to that chapel again. It’s temporary.

“One foot in your bedroom And one foot out the door“

Ties right back into the temporary. Having one foot out the door is indicative of someone about to run. Someone who loves the way someone prays in a chapel in a hospital. Someone who will get nostalgic for disaster.

“Sometimes we take chances, sometimes we take pills I could write it better than you ever felt it“

The first line of this harkens back to the “I sing the blues and you swallow them too” line. Both are zeugmas. And the way this is phrased indicates that the narrator believes it is one or the other.

It’s all a game of this or that.

When someone takes pills, it is to feel (or not feel) something. The narrator saying “I could write it better than you ever felt it” shortly after singing about how sometimes they take pills throws a bit of... almost as if the actual feelings don’t matter, because the narrator can fake it better. There’s almost a sense of smug superiority in this song, about how the disconnect of actual permanent love doesn’t mean the narrator can’t understand. If anything, he understands better than the listener.

After this, the rest of the song is a repeat of lines I’ve discussed before, but there is a bridge where the narrator is singing the lines to “hallelujah”. Singing, not humming.

The narrator is telling the listener to hum hallelujah-- off the key of reason-- but the narrator himself is singing hallelujah, and on key. Throughout the song there has been this disconnect between the listener and the narrator. With the listener being held on a pedestal, while the narrator degrades himself, but now the narrator is the one perfectly hitting his cues.

anyway, i am by no means saying that hum hallelujah is the only one of their songs covered with this much nuance, nor am i trashing their other songs, but something about hum hallelujah hits entirely different from their other songs on infinity on high-- and in general-- making it an entirely different experience, and making it worthy of the best song title.

#i love hum hallelujah so much #tbf i might be biased because i listened to it when i was in my crisis of faith in hs #so hearing 'i love you in the same way there's a chapel in a hospital' actually fundamentally changed me #like that line sends me frothing at the mouth #anyway here's my promised hum hallelujah dissection!#fall out boy #fob #hum hallelujah #infinity on high #ioh #this is also dedicated to that fob song showdown

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viewerspookyhappenings · 5 months

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okay buckle up chuckle fucks here is everything i remember from tonight (absolutely missing some stuff)

- before dan comes on he introduces himself over the speaker stating that he asked phil to do it and phil said no because he didn’t want to be sat behind a curtain for an hour

- dan comes on stage and stands in the big church plinth thing (iconic)

- he tells a story about how he went to a&e the day before yesterday because he had sore eyes. says phil was trying to get him to put eye drops in but he was being very dramatic so whilst on the phone to 111 phil knelt over him lying on the bathroom floor holding his eyes open to put drops in. dan then went to hospital to check it and everything’s fine (lol) he just needed some special eyedrops. phil did not accompany him and dan had to cross a dual carriageway on his own whilst not being able to see well (i doubt he will ever let it go)

- here is a diagram i drew on the way home to depict said event

- it is also giving this

- spoke about the butt chair. union chapel said they did not have any furniture for him to borrow so he had to bring his own - he bought the butt chair from his bedroom and a lil plant to decorate. said phil carried the plant to the car but made dan get the chair in the uber and then said “okay have fun at work sweetie” (this was said jokey but we died nonetheless)

- he then talks about pissyourselffordan trending and how he had to explain to harper collins what the actual fuck was happening on stan twt. apparently they were glad the fans were supportive and he has an engaged audience but they were not going to use the hashtag in the promo. called the whole scenario pissgate and the crowd chanted piss at him

- he was told there was wine and advertised wine before realising alcohol was not allowed in the church. he then got given a sprite and everyone screamed that it was piss

- talked about the book and the previous release, how weird covid was, talked about the photoshoot for the book cover and the graphic design. said he didn’t love the pics because they were super dramatic. someone shouted “it’s cunty” he replies: “oh it’s cunty is it?” then realises he said cunty in a church which was a big lol

- he then read the new chapters, several mentions of phil not being supportive and abandoning him at the hospital (he talked about phil a lot it was very sweet)

- then brought out dan’s slit (box used to put questions in before the show)

- the questions i can remember include but are not limited to:

- what was the weirdest position you wrote the book in: “cheeks out in an armchair curled up over my laptop, you might think your scrolling posture is okay now but when you hit thirty you will all be broken”

- fave comfort show: “the office - is the office a bit millennial? it isn’t as millennial as friends. ross being offended by a manny? that’s where my internalised homophobia is from”

- how has the gaming channel affected your mental health? A: he is finding it a lot more sustainable than before because of help with editing, but will see where it goes

- will he ever judge drag race: he didn’t want to when he was asked because he didn’t want to be exposed to more speculation about his sexuality at the time, same with strictly come dancing

- how do you cope with feeling lonely whilst surrounded by people: talked about how online friends are truly real friends and distance doesn’t have to determine friendship levels. says it is important to notice the friendships even that aren’t close

- i can’t remember the question but he said that phil has to remind him of some of the stuff that is in ywgttn when he struggles “i literally learnt the word catastrophising from your book dan come on”

- another tour? “do you guys want that” *screaming* “what would it be?” *dan and phil games screams* “well 👀👀”

- are we going to get more sister daniel: *everyone loses their minds* “maybe i should have done it for the church but it is far too exposing under the spotlight”

- did you work in the asda in Lower Earley: “what in the baby reindeer? yes i did”

- then went to the insta questions that were too inappropriate for the audiobook including

- piss

- will you wear wigs

- when will you wear wigs

- how long is your big toe “six centimetres - i don’t have a big toe im just a long person”

- pee pee poo poo time

- what were the other names for the book: “you will get through this was a bit cliche, you will get through this night? she is sexy and mysterious. at first we wanted to call it “you are messed up read this to fix your issues” but then realised the book was more serious in tone after it was finished so went with ywgttn instead”

- i genuinely can’t remember most of these i think i dissociated a lil at this point if anyone remembers please add

- then read the author’s note at the end of the paper back, talking about how lockdown impacted him and was a big scary thing and also how incredible it is to see people recommend it, find it useful, have therapists recommend it etc. “it is an honour to have created this”

- took a selfie with everyone

- someone gave him a bouquet of flowers and he said “aww you guys are so gay”

- then said “if you enjoyed seeing me in person… i’ll see you again very soon”

this is everything i remember off the top of my head so people please feel free to add what i have forgotten!!

and here are all the pics i got!!

#dnp #dan and phil #daniel howell #amazingphil #dapg #ywgttn #dan howell #phil lester #phan #dnpgames #dapgames

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