Heartfelt Tribute To My Chemical Romance And Its Loyal Fanbase

Photo credit: Lindsey Byrnes

The Nostalgia. It seizes the heart of every My Chemical Romance fan – the familiar introductory chords, leading into one of their most infamously heartbreaking songs, and from thence bringing about from one’s very fangirl being the excruciating need to either sing it, or sob it.

There is no known in-between.

That is, not for such an amassed conglomerate of fans consisting of both theatre nerds and former elementary and/or high school “emo” kids, spanning back as far as (could you believe it) 23 years.

To some, it feels as if it was only yesterday that said band was all but the main darling to Hot Topic and its formerly yet affectionately spooky depths, and the styles that both influenced were cladding every misunderstood child that had the expenses to fund it. 

All that black hair dye and eyeliner was not cheap. Nor were the studded belts and lacquered nail polish that often paired with it. 

But what was indeed of no charge was the shared experience that was ‘The Ghost of You’; one that MCR laid out before their adoring public as a voluminous story of war and its cinematic end result of lost love.

Via the airwaves, your CD player, your iPod nano that was already running out of space for some reason – what united all who listened was all of the imagination and the senses that fueled it, being awashed with what the track itself audibly portrayed, and then eventually what its equally stunning music video complemented: tragedy and its most beautiful. 

Fast forward some two decades, and not only can it be plainly observed for itself that it has not lost any of its luster, but even now… in the form of a newly refurbished and yet lovingly vintage version, it can rightly summon back all the tears, pitfalls, and jabs to the heart that make the track itself immortal in not just its genre of origin, but now, one that both predates as well as trumps all when it comes to absolute tragedy.

In the style of a 1944 Hollywood cinema score, befitting the theme of the original music video, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox presents perhaps the pinnacle cover to My Chemical Romance’s 2004 classic, ‘The Ghost of You’.

The Tribute

Most tracks by Postmodern Jukebox are recorded from their previously filmed performances, which can all be found on their YouTube channel. And as for this particular track, the video that it stems from is – in no better words – exquisite. 

The lighting that falls on the band is gold-tinted and hazy, making the metallic silver of lead vocalist Effie Passero’s gown appear warm and yet fluid, like a bronzed statue trapped in a movement that seeks to turn away, but can’t.

Therefore, she must sing what pain she yearns to shield.

And does she ever. 

0:16-0:26 is our introduction to her voice, flowing smoothly and dulcet, akin to the first sip of a deep red wine. What follows with no warning from then on is the accumulation of a story that perhaps we as an audience who has seen this film once before, have yet to fully grasp in its tragic totality. How she alone does it – she makes the lyrics so clear.

Not to insinuate Gerard Way and his vocals as muddled, or anything of the like. We’ve him to thank, after all. But what was essential to the original track was more so its establishing (and mastering) of both its style and genre, and what was indeed to be both established and mastered was that they were the top-most emo pop-punk and alternative rock band to date. Their overall sound was important, not so much the lyrics, just yet upon first listening.

It was not yet the song to rival all their others. 

However, from a now formidable position of veteran status, the track itself can be appreciated and reiterated as much as those who admire respectfully may please. And what is the most admirable about this iteration, swooning and crying ever so alluringly, is that you can audibly follow along with what story is being told; that of one belonging to a soldier who is in their moment of truth, reminded of their mortality… And how fleeting it is to them.

But not to the one they love.

Just then, at 0:47, wherein that classic chorus comes to storm through the visual one has since gathered while listening of two souls parting, a beauteous swell of strings amplifies the revelation of the narrative that we will be following – a revelation that would often make an audience in a theatre realize, even so early on, that those that we wish to see survive to the end are already doomed to never meet. And so spectacularly (and familiarly) so.

The second verse arises from an MCR fan’s battered memory, the callback to militant drums, rumbling along the underlying rhythm by 1:11 as if teasing somehow. New rendition though this may be, paying tribute to both our childhood tragedy as well as a cherished era, there must be at least one reminder for ourselves of exactly whose song this is. And let it be done so by way of inspiring the march of the black parade; the trill of the marcher’s drums and all.

 Piano and brass take dominance alongside both the strings and the percussion, creating what feels like the completion of an ensemble, what with the way Passero crowns such a moment with a glorious high note. But in leaving the chorus once more, leading us steadily into closely remembered but suddenly uncharted territory, the world and its noise fall away, but for a moment.

A harp plucks the sudden silence at 2:14, and surrounds the late pre-chorus of “If I fall…” with the joined tears that can only be bled up from that of a quietly weeping string section, somber and yet threatening to bring about even more heartache in such a build-up toward the return of those marching drums. And then the brass. And then a vocal climax that brings us hurdling back to our story at hand, and at what point we now find ourselves in with our heroine and their narrative, which we’ve clung to: 

The end.

From 3:05 on, it is the race towards a death scene. No other such description could measure, as all of what has been uproariously gathered to score the closing of this musical epic comes together and leaves what audience that had the bleeding heart to stick around off with “For all the ghosts that are never gonna…!”.

Then silence. One might even hear, if you strain to do so, the sound of dust settling upon the final act, wherein what tragic poses of death imitated would be shown on a silver screen, displaying the consequences of war, which are often most political.

And yet we, as listeners and audience alike, dared to instead follow – as the ensemble plays in one last swell – the ones that we were all but warned would not make it out alive. 

As Passero leaves off so eerily herself: “I never / said I’d lie and wait forever”.

The Reward

 

Just as ‘The Ghost Of You’ ages gracefully, so does the effect it inflicts upon both unassuming and seasoned fans; be it arriving upon MCR for the first time or being brought back to remember the tearful journey that is the song itself. 

Though reactions were at first guarded and then trickling in mixed, the gradual, steady flow of praise soon followed, as well as full dissections of how Postmodern Jukebox’s rendition compared to the original.

Where one solidified its place in a once crowded genre as supreme, the other joins in its ranks as a loving result of it. The latter, though painfully and yet beautifully different, would be nothing without the former. And of that, there is no debate.

Yet, what perhaps was fought for for but an instant, yet was immediately squashed, was Postmodern Jukebox and their ‘Ghost Of You’s legitimacy as more than an adequate love letter to what was.

It is a testament to what will always be a fond memory, of a time the style and culture called for tragedy. And it draped upon everyone well.