#did i just write a fuckin essay about golden->thnks fr th mmrs? i think so

[oldmyths]

i’m only a LITTLE bit sorry for all these posts today but i literally cannot stop thinking about fall out boy. this is my life now i have to accept it so here we go

it just hit me, now, as i was thinking of how to approach writing this post, that golden, the shortest and objectively saddest song in fall out boy’s discography, the one song without any reference to hope or any reference to beyond that point, the song that doesn’t say “hey maybe it sucks now but it might not later,” or “it wasn’t always like this,” golden, the song that says “i saw god cry in the reflection of my enemies / and all the lovers with no time for me”

transitions beautifully into one of their most recognizable songs, one that says “been looking forward to the future / but my eyesight is going bad”

tonally and emotionally, thnks fr th mmrs and golden are on wildly different areas on the binary of songs by fall out boy. i mean like, in taking mmrs at face value there’s a lot of sexual connotations there and that probably means something but with fob lyrics it rarely ever has just one meaning. that’s why the bluntness of golden’s “where the sewage of youth drowned the spark of my teens” compared to mmrs’ “get me out of my mind, and get you out of those clothes” is so striking to me

in mmrs, we’re placed in a moment. there’s reflection done in the lyrics, we’re thinking about past events, shit that happened to the speaker that we weren’t there for. things that don’t involve us, “he tastes like you, only sweeter.” film reference aside, the nebulous he tastes like you, us, but sweeter/better. we’re being criticized, or in the middle of an argument/debate/conversation. but there’s tension between us and the speaker too. “it sent you to me without wings,” “i’m a liner away from getting you into the mood,” “one night stand (one night stand-off)”

similarly, we’re placed in a moment in golden, with a very heavy look upon the past of the speaker. golden is all about the past, and what happened, and how living disingenuously, treating others well with the expectation of gaining reward instead of doing it to be kind can and did fuck up the speaker on a cosmic level. no one is praising them, they perceive everyone as treating them unfairly, and we, the listener, are living through that experience with the speaker as they realize it.

there is no ‘after’ in golden, we can’t conceptualize the speaker outside of this moment the way we can in mmrs. the scenario in mmrs is, on a surface level, a sexually charged encounter that could end up with bruised lips or bruised eyes. it’s up in the air, but the past between ‘us’ and the speaker is established (there’s only enough to imply something but whatever happened has left the speaker bitter, or unsatisfied.) the past of the speaker in golden is established, we do not exist as active listeners. “everyone,” “enemies,” “lovers,” and “mothers.” there is no “you,” “we,” or “us,” only broad, general concepts (mothers is more exclusive, but ‘mothers’ is only defined by ‘their babies’ in the lyrics.)

it’s very possible that there is no connection between these songs, but i can’t stop thinking about this anyway thanks for coming to my tedtalk